The Comeback

by E. L. Shen

  I hand him a copy of the script. “I’m going to need you to read the boy parts.”

  Someone sighs loudly, but I try to pretend it’s only Judy cheering me on as I complete a flawless triple toe.

  “Of course, Maxine.” His voice is gentle and soothing, like Dad’s when he’s persuading me to try ginger-soy fish or shrimp with the eyeballs still attached.

  I chant Mom’s saying in my head: Shuǐ dī shí chuān. “If you’re persistent, you can overcome anything.” And right now, I really need to overcome my stage fright or else I’ll fail history and have to drop out of school or something. And I can’t do that because I’m twelve. You got this, Maxine.

  I run through my skit, enunciating every word like Mom and I practiced.

  Mr. Warren proves himself a great soldier, indignantly bellowing that a woman such as myself can’t possibly load a cannon. I pick up the ramrod that Dad and I put together last weekend, and pretend to defiantly swab and load an imaginary cannon until the British army falls to the ground. I then read through the rest of Mary’s biography, talking about her legacy and bravery, and making sure to include dates and some details on what a ramrod is for and how you load a cannon so I can get extra points. When I’m finished, I let out a big lungful of air.

  “Brava, brava!” Mr. Warren shouts, his mustache curved at the corners of his lips like a second smile.

  The class offers loud applause. Elisa claps lightly, her red ponytail swinging as her hands come together. She’s wearing fake pearls and a weird doily over her shirt as Abigail Adams.

  “Thanks,” I reply, wiping my forehead as I hurry back to my seat.

  “Now, who’s next?” Mr. Warren saunters around the “stage,” a taped section of tile in front of the whiteboard.

  “How about you, Mr. Macreesy? I believe the class has a lot to learn about”—he looks down at his paper—“John Laurens?”

  The class turns to Alex. He sinks down in his seat, so focused on digging his pencil into his desk that you’d think it was a school assignment.

  “Alex?”

  Mr. Warren walks down the rows slowly before he reaches Alex’s slumped form. He taps the top of Alex’s chair.

  “Anyone in there?”

  Porcupine Head jerks upward, his shoes squeaking against the floor. Elisa rolls her eyes, adjusting her doily collar.

  “I don’t have it,” he mumbles into his sweatshirt.

  “What was that?”

  “I didn’t write the stupid skit, okay?” Alex’s voice cracks, echoing off the walls. Whispers and giggles snake through the aisles.

  “What a doofus,” someone says.

  Elisa rubs her temples like she has a massive headache.

  “All right, settle down,” Mr. Warren says. He frowns at the class. Alex is seemingly immersed in the lettering on his blueberry sweatshirt.

  “Tomorrow, Mr. Macreesy”—Mr. Warren’s voice is stern—“I expect a full skit about John Laurens. Understood?”

  “Yes,” Alex mutters.

  “Good.”

  When the bell finally rings, Alex springs to his feet, dumping all his books into his backpack faster than you can say Revolutionary War.

  I hurtle toward the door, crammed behind throngs of classmates still snickering and gossiping.

  Someone crashes into my back, jolting me forward. My skit, still crumpled in my hands, flutters to the ground. A shoe pushes off the page, a dirt-encrusted sneaker mark now caked onto my script. I spin around.

  “Hey!”

  Alex is standing behind me, beady eyes pointed right at mine as if he were a hawk ready to swoop in and snatch his prey.

  He pokes my arm. “Mary’s skin was white, not yellow,” he whispers.

  I flinch. The papers are still scattered on the floor, and I can feel myself sweating. But then I remember Hollie’s face, aglow with fiery determination, with the belief that I am somehow wittier and smarter than the boy standing before me. Practice makes perfect, I tell myself. The cannon inside me prepares to fire. My voice says:

  “Well, John Laurens was a soldier, not a swine. Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t know since you’re too stupid to even do the assignment.”

  The words fly from my mouth and explode into the air. Alex’s eyes widen, and then—as the insult settles in—narrow once more. They begin to darken.

  But he says nothing. Or rather, at last, he has nothing to say. Instead he pushes past me, knocking my shoulder so that I stumble.

  This time, though, I catch my fall.

  Victory

  After school, I sprint across the front lawn and burst into the rink, searching the long maze of hallways with half-crazed eyes.

  I run right into Fleur’s mom, whose granola bar almost spills onto the floor.

  “Maxine!” she shouts.

  “Oops, sorry.” I cringe, backing away slowly.

  She’s got on overalls and giant yellow earmuffs that make her look like a grown-up-size Minion. I stifle a giggle. She puts her hands on her hips.

  “If you keep jumping around like that, you’re going to hurt yourself. Then who will compete at sectionals?”

  I bite my bottom lip. “Fleur?”

  June’s face widens in surprise before she smiles just a tiny bit.

  “Does your mother know you’re such a troublemaker?”

  I grin. “Yep.”

  She shakes her head before sauntering back down the hallway.

  I jog past the synchro girls and the hockey players and the little kids at Learn to Skate classes before I dash up a stairway and keel over. Man, just because I skate does not mean I can run. I stop at the snack stand perched on the rink’s balcony. Flopping my arms over the counter, I breathe in whiffs of hot grease and sugar. Mmmm. I can almost taste the crunchy sweetness. Mom and Dad rarely let me get snack stand food because it’s “processed” and “bad for my health.” I’m pretty much stuck on a diet of meat, healthy carbs, fruit, and vegetables. Mom always lectures that chips will make me sleepy on the ice and destroy my insides or something. But today, I dig around in my backpack for change and manage to find nine quarters total: just enough for my favorite guilty pleasure. If I can scarf them down in seven and a half minutes, I’ll have plenty of time to warm up.

  Cressie raises an eyebrow when she sees me.

  “Miss Maxine, to what do we owe the pleasure of your stomping feet?”

  I look up sheepishly. “Have you seen Hollie anywhere? I have very important news to tell her.”

  “Very important, huh? Well, you can tell an old lady, too. There’s not much good gossip around here.” She laughs, like she’s the audience for her own joke.

  I shake my head, my braids bopping against my neck. “Just school stuff,” I say.

  As if I would tell Cressie Oliver anything. Two weeks ago, she offhandedly told everyone that Jimmy (one of the junior boys) had a secret girlfriend, and then last week, we all found out that it was Donna, Adam’s ice dance partner. Now they can’t go anywhere without someone at the rink shouting, “Donna and Jimmy sitting in a tree!” Apparently, some things don’t change no matter how old you are.

  Cressie winks at me. “All right, I see how it is. Anyway, I don’t think Hollie’s here yet. I haven’t seen her on the ice.”

  I sigh.

  Cressie pulls her hairnet over her forehead. “Can I get you anything in the meantime?”

  A slow smile spreads across my face. I pull out the nine quarters, stacking them neatly on the countertop.

  “Nachos,” I say, “extra cheese.”

  “You got it, girl.”

  While she’s bustling behind the counter, I dream of the oozing yellow goo on a huge pile of deep-fried corn tortillas, salty on my tongue. Maybe it’s not the healthiest snack, but today, I deserve it. I replay my encounter with Alex over and over in my head until I’m ready to burst with pride. The predator has become the prey.

  Cressie unveils a magnificent pile of nachos.

  “Careful,” she says, “they’re h
ot.”

  “Thanks, Cressie.”

  I carry my snack over to the locker room and crunch away like there’s no tomorrow. I keep my eyes steady on the door until I hear footsteps coming closer. I jump up, nacho crumbs falling down my shirt.

  “Hollie!” I shout as soon as I spot her blanket of blond curls.

  I run up to her, ready to shake her shoulders and tell her my most spectacular news. But then I see her face. Hollie’s cheeks are red and blotchy, her eyes puffy. She wipes away snot with the back of her hand.

  “Hollie?” I skid to a stop. “Are you okay?”

  Hollie’s green eyes blink once, then twice, like she’s just now registering who I am.

  “Oh, hey, Maxine.” She drops her skating bag on the ground. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  My forehead crinkles. This is definitely not a portrait of someone who’s “okay.” The rings under her eyes are dark and shiny with freshly stained tears. I scan the doorway for her mom. She always stays for practice.

  “Where’d your mom go?”

  Hollie brushes past me, shaking off her coat and crumpling onto a bench. “Oh, she’s … busy.” She eyes my nachos. “Are these yours?” she asks. “Can I have some?”

  “Of course.”

  She stuffs three entire chips into her mouth at once and licks the cheese off her fingertips.

  “Mmmmm,” she says, her eyes closed, “ah-mazinggggg.”

  She scoots over so I can sit beside her. I try to wait until she’s done chewing before I say anything else. But she’s just munching away, unstoppable. My eyebrows furrow.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” I whisper.

  She nods, offering a half-hearted smile.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. Then, between bites: “You look like you had something to tell me?”

  I sit up, squaring my shoulders. “Today, Porcupine Head was the literal worst.”

  Hollie groans, her eyes tinged with worry. “Oh no,” she says.

  “But then I did something awesome.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “I gave it right back to him!”

  Hollie flings her hands in the air, almost dropping the nachos.

  “Oh my gosh, tell me everything.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Maxine! Hollie!”

  Hollie and I spin our heads around so quickly and so in tune, we could be synchronized skaters. Viktor and Judy are standing by the stairs, arms crossed. Judy’s eyes narrow.

  “Maxine Chen.”

  Oh man, not my full name again.

  “Lace up. Both of you. You’re three minutes late for warm-up.”

  I look at the clock. Darn it. Those seven and a half minutes somehow became eleven.

  We scatter to the locker room before Viktor can shoot us one more evil death glare. When we’re out of sight, Hollie takes my hand and squeezes.

  “Later,” she says, “I want to hear “everything.”

  A Few Surprises

  A new e-mail sings in my inbox: Eastern Sectionals are just eight days away! This year, they’re in Cheshire, Massachusetts, a small town that sounds like it’s straight out of a storybook. But when I step onto their rink, will the fairy tale be real?

  Last night, Meghana and I practiced Choctaws until my feet ached, and then I spent an extra hour on double Axels with Judy, just to get them precise. Judy videoed each one on her phone, and then we played them back in slow motion to ensure that I didn’t under-rotate or cut any corners. I can’t afford to make mistakes this time. I’ve never been to sectionals before, but I can only imagine that it’s way worse than regionals. Girls practically bungee-jumping into the air, layback spins so curved they could become acrobats when they’re done with their figure skating careers.

  DaMonique Sanders from Greensboro Skating Club is the one to beat. She is absolutely astonishing. I heard she beat the second-place finisher at her regionals by twenty-two points.

  I shove my phone into my backpack, tucking it away between stacks of math homework and half-written English essays. I figure if I can’t look at the e-mail, I’ll stop thinking about it.

  I focus on the face staring back at me in my locker mirror: oval forehead, thin cheeks, hair down for once, draping over my shoulders. My eyelids are smeared with shimmery purple. It’s not nearly as good as Jennie’s, but the Japanese girl on YouTube was going to have to do. It took me fifteen minutes just to figure out how to not make myself look like I was being punched in the face.

  The bell rings. I swipe on cherry ChapStick and examine my reflection one last time. The sectionals e-mail still blares in my mind, a never-ending reminder that I have exactly eight days to prove that I can medal, that I’m worthy of the national championships. That one day, I might represent America, even if it is made up of all old guys. Even if—

  “Maxine, hey.”

  Victoria stands in front of me, hugging her textbooks to her chest. Her doe eyes are wide, lashes curled so high they almost reach her eyebrows. Face-to-face for the first time in weeks, we study each other. Centuries seem to have passed since the last time we chatted at my locker.

  “How are you?” she asks.

  I shift in my sneakers. I wish I could tell her everything—the nightmares I’ve had, the laughter I hear in my sleep, the way her linked arm in Alex’s makes me want to simultaneously vomit and hide in my locker for the rest of eternity so I don’t have to ever see them again. I think about the stinging burns I could torch her with, just like Alex, just like he did to me. But as I look at her, I don’t think I have the heart. She looks so small, so young.

  “I’m good,” I tell her.

  She pulls at her skirt. So I guess she’s no longer rocking the blueberry trend anymore. Violet from Willy Wonka never suited her anyway. She’s much more of a Veruca Salt. Anyway, today she’s dressed like a mini Prada model, with her black checkered skirt, kitten stockings, and distressed pleather boots. She rubs a hand along her jawline.

  “I guess I’ll see you in art,” she says.

  “Yeah,” I reply, “see you.”

  Maybe I should feel upset, but I don’t. My steps somehow feel lighter. Victoria isn’t the first friend I’ve lost. In kindergarten, Sally Hughes played house with me every day for a week. And then the next Monday, she decided she didn’t want to anymore. I remember crying for two hours straight, soaking Mom’s blouse with my tears, my chest heaving so hard, my ribs felt sore. That night, Mom gave me this whole talk about how trees grow at different rates and every tree is different and maybe Sally and I were just sprouting on different timelines. I didn’t understand her analogy at all. But I think that now I do. Victoria is a willow and I am an oak.

  “Hey, Maxine?”

  I turn. Victoria is halfway down the hall, her eyes searching mine.

  “I just wanted to say that I like your makeup today.” She smiles. “It looks great.”

  I let myself smile back. “Thanks.”

  I’m almost late to history, but I manage to slide into my seat just as the second bell ends. Mr. Warren is passing out permission sheets.

  “It’s late notice,” he says, “but we just received approval from the Fort Ticonderoga Reenactment Society!”

  The classroom suddenly fills with murmurs. Elisa cranes her neck toward me.

  “My uncle was in one of their reenactments once,” she says. “He got to play Ethan Allen.”

  Mr. Warren waves his hands up and down like he’s conducting an orchestra instead of shushing a room of sixth graders.

  “I know, I know, it’s very exciting. Instead of school on Friday, we’ll be heading to the site where America had their first victory against the British! Where they looted and captured the fort!” At every other word, he punches his arm in the air. He’d be great as a guide on one of those double-decker tour buses. He’d get tips for enthusiasm alone.

  He runs his hand along the ends of his mustache. “That does mean, however, that I’ll need these permission slips signed by a parent or guardian and
returned to me tomorrow morning. Are we all clear?”

  No one is paying attention to him. They are all too busy talking about how they’re getting out of Friday’s math test. Since the skits are over (Alex finally mumbled some nonsensical stuff about John Laurens yesterday), Mr. Warren claps his hands, turns on the PowerPoint projector, and starts droning on about some other part of history I’m eventually going to have to memorize.

  While I take notes, I notice Alex staring at me. Is he looking at my eye shadow? Is he going to say something about my face again? And what comeback will I have this time? But as soon as I make eye contact, he looks away, immediately turning to scribble in his notebook.

  I smirk, just a little satisfied. Maxine: 2, Alex: 0.

  Worried

  By November, Lake Placid is cold and gray, at the start of a seemingly never-ending winter. Even we skaters have to bundle up in scarves as we flock to our icy home-within-a-home—our indoor winter that never ends.

  Hollie doesn’t realize this, though. She stalks into the rink with her windbreaker and Converse, a workbook tucked under her arm.

  “Seventy degrees!” She pulls her phone from her pocket and waves it in my face. “It’s seventy degrees in Virginia Beach right now.”

  I scrunch my nose. “That’s practically summer.”

  Hollie flops down on the bench and pulls her hood over her eyes. “It’s NORMAL weather. Now I can’t even do homework outside.”

  She’s still complaining when we get on the ice. During warm-ups, she keeps pausing to stare wistfully at the sliver of windows lining the rink, bare-limbed trees peeking in.

  “Viktor’s gonna yell at youuuuu,” I whisper in a singsong voice.

  Hollie pouts.

  Lo and behold, 3.5 seconds later, Viktor emerges on the rink with his bleached undercut and bright red RUSSIA jacket (seriously, if he’s trying to emulate a stoplight, it’s working) and starts making wild hand movements at Hollie like he’s trying to relay some secret code.