Boy Girl Games

by Stella Wilkinson

  As she sat inside the library, alternating between studying, reading, and staring out the window, Beth found herself thinking more and more about Matt and less and less about her ambition to become a vet.

  She had already chosen Veterinary Science as her University degree, simply because she preferred animals to people. She was desperate for a pet of her own, but Compass Court didn’t allow them. One day, she promised herself, she would have a house full of cats. In the meantime, the best thing she could do was to make sure she got excellent grades in all her A-level subjects so that she could get a place at Oxford or Cambridge University. That had been her sole ambition in life, but now she wondered if she might like just a little bit more to her life than just study. Could she ace her exams and still have a little bit of a social life?

  She sighed; if she wanted a social life then she might first need a personality transplant! Her attempts to talk to Matt had been pathetic. It was incredibly lucky that he hadn't noticed, but how long would that last? Pretty soon he would cotton on to the fact that she was socially inept and then he wouldn’t bother to talk to her anymore. Why couldn’t she be stronger? She so wished she was.

  She wished she could be more like her friend Wendy. Wendy was one of the girls that Beth shared a room with, and she always made the effort to sit and chat to Beth instead of getting bored and talking to more outgoing people. Wendy was into reading and many other things, but she was nothing like Beth. Wendy died her hair black and pink and wore a lot of eye makeup. The teachers were always telling her to tone it down but Wendy didn’t listen to anyone, she did what she wanted when she wanted. Beth thought Wendy was the bravest person she had ever met. She wished she could be more like that, but instead she just desperately wanted to be accepted. She wanted to be able to go and see Matt at football try-outs.

  Beth shut the book she was looking at and stood up purposefully. Tomorrow was Saturday and she would make darn well sure she saw Matt. She would go to the sports field and cheer him on.

  Back at in her room, Beth went through her wardrobe. What was the right thing to wear to watch a football try-out? She was naturally quite slim; she didn’t eat a lot plus she liked to take long walks by herself through the woods surrounding Compass Court. Her legs were long, and she thought they were probably her best feature, but she was depressingly aware that she had very little “up top” to make her more noticeable to boys. As it was a Saturday she wouldn’t have to wear her school uniform, and it was a chance to make an impression, to show Matt she was a girl, a dateable girl. She settled for white shorts and a plain navy blue t-shirt under a navy blue hooded jumper, but with flowery patterned pumps on her feet to add some femininity.

  She felt like she was the only sixteen-year-old girl in the whole of Compass Court who didn’t wear make-up, but she wasn’t ready to change that.

  On Saturday morning she got up and showered and dressed much earlier than usual. Then she had to pace around her dorm because there was nothing that seemed able to hold her attention. She tried reading and she even tried doing some prep, but none of it worked. She had checked the information in the gym and so she knew the try-outs didn’t start until 10.30 a.m., but it was only quarter to nine!

  “Are you alright?” Wendy asked her, after she had done a circuit of the room for about the fifth time.

  “Yes, fine. Just stretching my legs,” Beth replied, and decided to do it outside instead, before her other roommates noticed too and started asking more pointed questions than Wendy would.

  Having left her room with still an hour until she needed to head for the sports field, Beth decided to visit the library first. She would usually spend a large portion of the day there, studying and also just reading for pleasure in her favourite corner, but on that particular day she ended up wondering aimlessly around it, and eventually walked out again having done nothing at all except passed another few minutes.

  She took a long route to reach the sports field, going via the school tuck shop to pick up a muffin to kill some time, but when she reached the area allocated to the football pitches she stopped dead.

  Surrounding the pitch was a crowd of people.

  Bethan didn’t do crowds.

  She took five measured deep breaths and slowly walked closer. She could see through the people that there were both boys and girls on the pitches and they were doing some sort of ball skills test: dribbling a football in and out among orange cones and then kicking it to a goalkeeper, one at a time.

  She got a little closer, still unable to see Matt. The crowd cheered and Beth tensed up and stopped moving. Noisy crowds made her even more uncomfortable.

  She counted to ten then started moving forward again. There was another loud cheer and some clapping.

  Beth turned tail and set off at a brisk trot in the opposite direction. Just past the football pitch was the rugby pitch, where a few boys were practicing some kicking, and she kept going. Eventually she reached the cricket nets was relieved to find the area empty. She sat down and put her head on her knees.

  What was wrong with her? “Could I be any more pathetic?” she chided herself. “Those were just the player’s friends. I have to go back there and let Matt see me being supportive and interested, and then I have to talk to him if I can.” She nodded to herself but didn’t move. “But I probably wouldn’t get a chance to talk to him, not with all those other people there. It would be much easier just to wait until Monday and talk to him in Special Ed class. Would he really notice or care if I’m there today? Probably not.” But she knew she was just trying to make herself feel better.

  She spent a little more time trying to convince herself to go back, but the longer she debated the worse her anxiety seemed to get. Was any boy actually worth getting herself into such a state over? Matt was cute, but it wasn’t as though going to the try-outs was going to change her life in any way or make it better. She didn’t need to put herself through that.

  With the decision made in her mind, Beth calmed down. She stood up and walked calmly back to the library. It was only once she got there that she suddenly felt the need to hide in the toilet and have a really good bout of tears!

  Twenty minutes later she was back outside in the sunshine, red-eyed and still sniffing a little, but feeling stronger. She didn’t want to be in the library, but she also knew she didn’t want to go to the sports field again. She chewed a fingernail wondering what to do. Then walked reluctantly back to her room feeling like a failure.

  “Hey,” Wendy looked up from her desk surprised to see Beth back so soon.

  “Hi, are you busy? Do you have time to chat?”

  “Sure,” Wendy shut her laptop and moved to sit on her bed opposite Beth’s. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing really, I could just use a friend right now, boy trouble and all that nonsense.”

  “Boy trouble? Now I’m definitely interested. I wasn’t even sure you knew boys existed, tell me everything!”

  Beth grinned and curled up on her own bed next to Wendy’s. Wendy had buckets of personality and her sarcastic humour was exactly what Beth felt she needed. That, and a good swift kick in the pants!

  Chapter Four

  “SO THEN I TOTALLY CHICKENED out and basically ran away.” Beth finished recounting every bit of information concerning Matt right up to date.

  “But you’ll see him on Monday, right?” Wendy lounged on her bed, now painting her toenails as she listened to the full story.

  “Yes,” Beth said.

  “So, don’t beat yourself up then. You don’t like crowds of people, that’s no biggie. It’s not as though you have to turn around ten times before you leave the house or anything.” Wendy laughed as she saw the look of confusion on Beth’s face. “It was something I saw on TV, this guy who got so anxious he had to go through all kinds of rituals just to go out the front door. What I’m saying is, Matt probably won’t care that you weren’t there, and it doesn’t really matter anyway because you get to see him in class.”

  “Wha
t if he asks why I didn’t come?”

  “Did you say you were going to be there?”

  Beth thought about it for a second and then shook her head. “No, he asked me and then we got interrupted.”

  Wendy smiled triumphantly, “There you go then. If he asks then you can say how much you wanted to come but that you were busy with a prior commitment.”

  “Doing what?” Beth couldn’t imagine him thinking that her going to the library was much of a commitment.

  “Hanging out with me, of course! Let him know you have friends and a life of your own.”

  “Even though I don’t.” Beth grinned ruefully.

  “Sure you do, this is girl time right now. What do you think of this colour? It’s called Red Is the New Black.”

  “I think the red is so dark that it might as well be black,” Beth said honestly.

  “Yeah, me too. I thought it was going to be more blood-coloured than that.” Wendy wriggled her toes to get them dry quicker.

  “Listen, Beth. You like this boy, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So do something about it. Don’t let life pass you by while you hide from it in the library. Just tell yourself you are going to do just one extraordinary thing, break the mould and just kiss him.”

  “No way, I couldn’t!” Beth shuddered at the idea.

  “Then be a quiet nobody and just watch in silence while he has a life without you,” Wendy said forcefully. “For goodness’ sake, Beth, you need to make things happen, otherwise they just happen for somebody else, got it?”

  “Got it.” Beth rolled her eyes.

  “Seriously! Just grasp the nettle, okay? It might sting a little but I promise you it will be worth it.”

  “Okay, okay already.” Beth laughed. Talking to Wendy had indeed been exactly what she needed. She really did feel pumped up to do something after the pep talk she had just been given. She just needed to hold on to that feeling until Monday.

  Chapter Five

  BETH SAT IN CLASS FEELING like she had ants in her pants. She could hardly keep still as she counted the seconds go by until Miss Grant stopped her lecture and set them an activity.

  This time they were told to partner up and ask a list of pre-set questions to another person. She bravely smiled at Matt and then exhaled in relief as he made his way over to her desk.

  “So how did try-outs go?” Beth pushed herself to ask as soon as he’d sat down.

  Matt ran his hand through his hair and grinned enthusiastically. “Oh, they were cool. Some really great people. There were two different teams I tried out for, there’s the all-boys first team, and I made it as Centre-Back, and there’s the mixed league as well, that’s the new big thing apparently. I looked for you, but didn’t see you...”

  Beth shifted awkwardly, uncomfortable with the idea of stretching the truth. “No, sorry. I didn’t get a chance to tell you last week, but I already had other plans with a girlfriend.”

  “A girlfriend, huh? Not a boyfriend then?”

  “No, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Good.” He gave her a cheeky smile.

  Beth opened her mouth to answer and then realised she didn’t know what to say, and closed it again. Was he flirting with her? She didn’t know how to flirt. She bit her lip and hoped she wasn’t blowing it already. She had spent the whole week desperate to see him and talk to him, and yet she could already feel herself retreating into her shell and clamming up.

  She counted slowly to twenty while she tried to regain control of her fears so she could say something witty and clever rather than just flap her jaw open and shut.

  Beth made a show of studying the list of questions in front of her until she felt calm again.

  “Question one on my sheet says: do you believe in aliens?” she frowned at it, never having given the question a great deal of thought herself.

  “Yes, but I don’t think there are any here.” His mouth quirked up at the corner. “Mine says: do you believe in telepathy?”

  “Um, no.” Beth blinked rapidly at the idea of how awful that would be.

  “Is it just me or are these questions weird?” He ran his finger down the list.

  “I think they are supposed to stimulate discussion or something.”

  “Why can’t we just talk to each other then?”

  Beth gave a nervous smile. Clearly Matt hadn’t worked out yet that the class was mostly made up of people who struggled with just talking to each other.

  “Yes, um, just talking is good. Anyway, you were telling me about your try-outs?” Beth leaned back against the wall behind her trying to appear cool and relaxed.

  “Right, yes. I was really hoping you’d come because of the new mixed league. Compass Court really wants to take part in it against a bunch of other schools that are doing it this year, but there were totally not enough girls. Apparently each team has to be at least one-third female players to qualify. Which means that in a team of eleven players we have to have at least three girls, preferably four. There were a few girls there but not enough decent ones to make up the quota. Toby, the team Captain is holding more tryouts again next week and it would be so fantastic if you would come. We could both be on the team and I would have at least one friend to hang out with.”

  Beth went almost starry-eyed at the thought of Matt wanting her to play football with him and hang out together. She almost completely forgot she couldn’t actually play football as she found herself nodding.

  “That sounds fun,” she said cautiously, “but I’m sorry, I’m really no good at football, you wouldn’t want me on your team.”

  “We would though. Seriously, we won’t be able to enter at all if we don’t have enough girls. Even if you did nothing at all but stand around looking pretty, it would still be better than what we have so far.”

  Beth blushed and looked at the floor. Was Matt saying he thought she was pretty? Or was he just speaking generally about girls?

  “But I would help you,” he continued, pushing the point, “we could do some extra training together if you like. Meet up in the week and practice a bit?”

  Beth only just managed to contain herself from leaping up and down and shouting “Yes!” He was actually suggesting that they should spend even more time alone; it would be the perfect opportunity to get to know him.

  “Okay, if you want me to.”

  Matt looked delighted and Beth felt a warm glow inside.

  It was only later, as she made her way back to North Tower, that she realised what she had agreed to. It wasn’t just going to be her and Matt. Other people would be there, lots of other people. Other players who would judge her, and the crowd... all those people watching. She had been freaked enough when they were cheering and clapping, how on earth would she handle it when they saw how awful she was? They might throw taunts at her, or hurl rotten tomatoes. Or throw worms at the bookworm, her paranoid voice whispered. Either way, she would never make the team and it would be humiliating. That was if she could even get herself close enough to the pitch to try out in the first place; chances were that she would run away again. Why had she told him she would do it? She should have simply said there was no way she would ever do such a thing and that he might as well stop talking to her straightaway because it was inevitable that it would happen in the end. Better it be sooner rather than later.

  Beth lay awake in bed that night despising herself for her weakness. She had finally met a boy she really liked and he seemed to like her too. Was she really going to let her stupid anxiety stand in the way of spending more time with him?

  It was all Paige’s fault. Paige had been her best friend, but then she had totally changed. Paige’s illness had somehow changed her. Beth knew that Paige had nearly died when she’d contracted teenage meningitis, and apparently she’d spent weeks on the critical list in hospital. Yet when Paige returned to school she was totally brimming with fun-loving cheerfulness and had become really popular, leaving Beth behind her in the dust. Not only had Paige beco
me involved in any and every social activity, but she had totally ditched Beth as a friend. Beth now considered Paige as the enemy. Paige was the enemy of shyness and the enemy of friendship. The moment that Beth had stopped trying to keep up with Paige and her new activity schedule, Paige had simply stopped talking to her, making Beth feel a million times worse and creating a situation where she had gone from simply being socially awkward to one where she actually hyperventilated in large groups of her peers.

  She’d moved rooms after that. She used to share with Paige and two other girls in South Tower, but she’d requested a transfer and been put into North Tower with Wendy, Sandra and Collette instead. Her panic attacks had gradually decreased after the move.

  She was over that now, and much better than she had been when she and Paige had first fallen out over two years earlier; but she still hadn’t really gotten back to her old self, let alone improved her confidence as she had once intended.

  Back then, when she had completely fallen apart, her mother had booked her some sessions with a therapist. He had taught her a few coping techniques, like the counting and to focus on her breathing, but she knew she still had further to go. How could she have a normal life if she couldn’t do normal things?

  She thumped her pillow a few times. She wanted a normal life. She had to find a way to step up and do stuff even if it scared her. She would go to the try-outs, somehow.

  Chapter Six

  BETH SPENT THE ENTIRE week going back and forth on her decision to attend the try-outs.

  She did what every bookworm would do when faced with a subject she didn’t know much about – she found books on it. One trip to the library produced an armful of books to take home. Over the course of the week Beth read three different books explaining all the rules of football, she read two footballer biographies, and she read a very useful book on how to improve football skills. The last book she reread several times, and she practiced some of the tips in secret out on the empty cricket pitch. She managed to vaguely master dribbling, and tackling (a tree) and kicking in the direction that she intended. It didn’t seem much, but she felt a darn sight more prepared than she had been before.