White Knights

by Julie Moffett

  I elbowed him in the gut, rebooting his central processor. “We’re still waiting for Colt, Patty.”

  “Really?” She laughed, her eyes narrowing into amused and nasty slits. “Come on, Angel. Did you seriously think Colt would show for you? Please. You’re either more stupid than I thought or truly delusional. He’s not coming. So, either start the game or forfeit.”

  Wally exchanged a worried glance with me. I swallowed hard. I had no idea what to say.

  “We’ll forfeit,” Mark said quickly after taking one look at my face. “Without Colt, we’ll get killed.”

  The crowd had started to get restless. I could hear catcalls and people shouting for us to get the game under way.

  OMG. Patty was right. I’d been stupid to think Colt would do this for me. I’d let everyone down, but worst of all, I’d failed Mr. Matthews. My cheeks burned with shame and, not surprisingly, anger.

  Colt played me. Why?

  I balled my fists against my side. No way was I going to let Colt ruin the fund-raiser.

  “No forfeit.” I pulled my hair back in a ponytail with the rubber tie around my wrist and grabbed Mark’s marshmallow popper. “I’ll take Colt’s place.” Then in a moment of inspiration, I added, “We have not yet begun to fight!”

  Wally’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Apparently so.” I turned to Mark. “Come on, dude. Let’s do this.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  ANGEL SINCLAIR

  Mark didn’t budge. Instead his eyes widened in a holy-crap-we-are-in-a-lot-of-trouble way. “Whoa. Wait. You want to fill in for Colt? Do you even know how to use that?” He pointed to the marshmallow shooter that I now held upside down.

  I turned it right side up and flipped it in my hand like I was a fancy gunslinger. “Sure, I know how to use it. How hard can it be?” It suddenly exploded in my hands. Gray confectioners’ sugar sprayed across Patty Trent’s perfect chest and chin.

  She screamed and swiped at her face. It only served to smear the powder around more. Her face and cheerleader outfit suddenly looked like the inside of an ashtray. Patty began shouting and stomping around.

  “You!” she shrieked, pointing at me. “I’m ruined.”

  The crowd roared in laughter and clapped as if this had been a planned part of the show.

  Patty glared at me. If looks could kill, I’d have been dead a hundred times over. No question—I’d made another enemy for life…or at least for the rest of my senior year.

  Fine. She could get in line behind all the others. Ugh.

  “You did that on purpose,” she said to me between clenched teeth.

  I had to try hard not to smile. “I didn’t. But perhaps you and I should take a bow anyway. I think the crowd expects it.”

  I gave a flourished bow, and the crowd roared again. After one more murderous glare at me, Patty stalked off toward the sidelines. I took a breath and turned to Wally. “Tell Cameron to give us three minutes, then start the game.”

  “Can I talk to you privately?” Wally yanked on my arm, pulling me away from Mark. “Are you insane? Need I remind you that Mary Herman is on the other team? Not to mention you don’t even know how to use that popper.”

  “It’s not rocket science,” I said, but I held the popper a bit more gingerly. “We’re out of options, Wally. I don’t know why Colt didn’t show.”

  Wally looked at the determined expression on my face and sighed. “Fine. It’s your funeral. Take off your sweatshirt.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “A white T-shirt has to be showing.”

  I hated the hedgehog shirt, but I didn’t have any choice. At least it was white. I tugged off the sweatshirt and tossed it to him.

  He took one look at my shirt and shook his head. “You’re a hot mess today.”

  “Shut up and let’s do this.”

  He tossed me a gray cap and I put it on, brim backward. I turned to Mark, and we jogged over to the rest of the Brains.

  “Um, why is she here?” David Smithson asked. I had him in my English and PE classes. Super smart guy, but no filter. I liked him for that, except for right now.

  A quick glance at my teammates confirmed there wasn’t a single girl, other than me, present. That only went to show you that women were a lot smarter than men, since none of us—other than me—had signed up for this disaster about to happen.

  “Colt’s a no-show.” Mark tossed me safety goggles. “She’s filling in for him.”

  “What?” David exclaimed. “We get Angel Sinclair instead of Colt McCarrell? Is this a joke? I didn’t sign up for total extermination.”

  There was a lot of muttering. The entire crew seemed seconds from laying down arms and walking away in forfeit. If they did that, we’d have to refund the players’ money, no one in the crowd would donate, and Mr. Matthews would have nothing.

  I groped for something to keep them there. “Wait. I have a strategy.”

  The skeptical glances that came my way almost made me walk away with them, but I steeled myself and lifted my chin. “The way to win in the Medieval Melee is to get the other team’s sword out of the stone, right? So the typical plan is to go on the offense and try to get past them or shoot your way through them until you can steal their sword. Let’s face it. They are bigger, faster, and stronger than us. That’s not a good strategy. But what if we give them only a few targets to shoot at? In other words, we don’t play offense, we play defense only. We move and evade, but we don’t try to press ahead. We dig in and wait. It’ll take them a lot longer to get to our sword, which gives us a better chance of picking them off one by one when they come for it.”

  “Yeah, but they’ll still get through—it will only be a matter of time,” one of the guys said. “If we don’t get their sword, we can’t win. So what’s the point of prolonging the agony?”

  “The point is patience. See that box over to the right? What if one of us works our way under it and hides?” I motioned to it with my head. “The person in the box doesn’t shoot or move—just stays hidden and lets the enemy pass. When they realize we aren’t pressing forward to threaten their sword, it’s logical they will leave their sword mostly, or possibly even entirely, unprotected. When we’re down to only one or two defenders, someone shouts a code word to let the person under the box know it’s time to go for the sword. Even if there’s an enemy defender protecting the sword, the odds of one against one are at least doable.”

  “That’s the dumbest strategy I’ve ever heard,” David said. “You can’t hide under a box for the whole game.”

  “You can,” I argued. “There’s nothing in the rules that says you can’t. You can’t leave the field, but so long as the box stays on the field, it’s fair.”

  To my relief, none of the Brains had left yet. Either I’d confused them too much with my so-called strategy or they were still trying to figure it out when Cameron blew his whistle as his first official act as referee.

  “Game is officially started,” he yelled through a megaphone. “Teams, take your positions and go.”

  Someone tossed Mark a popper, and he caught it with one hand. “Well, it’s not like we have time to develop a better strategy.” He adjusted his safety goggles over his eyes and gripped his popper and ammunition bag. “You heard her. Fall back and protect the sword. Angel, since the box was your idea, you do it.”

  “What? No, I don’t want to get under the box. I’m claustrophobic.”

  “You also can’t shoot worth a crap.” He shoved an ammunition bag in my hands. “Besides, you’re the smallest. Make your way over there and get under the stupid box before you accidentally shoot one of us.”

  “Fine. What’s the code word so I know when to come out?”

  “How about Xena? You’re going to need to be like her if we have any prayer of winning this.”

  “Xena?”

  “You know, the warrior princess. She always saves the day and looks hot while doing it. So save the day, oka
y? Unless you’ve got a better code word to offer. In my opinion, we’re going to need a lot more than you under a box to win this thing.”

  I was about to offer some pithy comeback when Mark ducked. A bullet with powdered sugar whizzed past his ear, slamming into the ground and spraying red dust everywhere.

  “Get down,” he shouted at me.

  “Aagh!” I yelped as another sugar bullet passed over my head.

  I dashed toward the biggest obstacle I could find, a large wooden panel. I quickly slid the goggles over my eyes and dared a quick peek around the panel. I didn’t see anyone. The Trains were also hiding behind their obstacles, plotting their takeover. My glance confirmed the box I had identified to hide under was about twenty-five feet in front of me.

  I hunched down behind the panel, my heart pounding. I had no freaking clue what I was doing except I had to get to that box quickly. If I waited too long, the Trains would be there. I held my popper like I knew what I was doing, although I wasn’t even sure how to fire it properly, and dashed around the panel toward the box. A couple of bullets were shot my way, but for once in my life, being small worked in my favor. They all shot too high, and when I ran in a half crouch, they couldn’t hit me. I made it safely behind the box, struggling to catch my breath because I was shaking from nerves.

  There was a sudden barrage of popping and shouting occurring on the left side of the field. Mark and a few of the others were trying to draw attention away from me. The screaming and yelling from the crowd heightened, but I couldn’t understand any of what was going on. Their words were more like a swell of noise that ebbed and flowed but had no actual meaning.

  No time to waste. I carefully lifted one corner of the box. Again, my small size was an advantage, because the box lifted only slightly as I wiggled under it.

  My claustrophobia kicked in the second I was in the box. It wasn’t as dark as I’d expected, but it was closed. Plus, I was vulnerable to anyone who discovered I was in there. They would only have to kick the box over and I was toast. I’d never even know they were coming.

  Kids were shouting things, but it was hard to make out what was going on. I hoped that held true for the Trains as well. It wouldn’t be long before they realized our strategy of holding back and not pressing forward with wild abandon. The crowd was going nuts now; the roar was loud. Strategically, I’d made a serious error. The box muffled sound a lot more than I expected. The screaming on the field and from the crowd didn’t help me hear better, either.

  I froze when a thump hit the outside of the box. It was from the Train side, so I figured it was an enemy player. I quietly lifted my popper in case they pushed the box over. But after a long minute—maybe the longest minute of my life—the box stayed intact, and there was no more thumping. I relaxed my guard slightly, hoping whoever it was had moved on.

  I decided it would be a better strategy to minimize my exposure by reducing the distance I had to run to make it to the sword. That meant scooting the box toward enemy territory as stealthily as possible. Hopefully, no one would detect the motion of the box while they were running around and shooting at people.

  Little by little, I started to move. I moved to my hands and knees and began to crawl, with the strap of the marshmallow gun in my teeth. I slid the box in tiny increments toward the direction of the enemy sword. I stopped every few seconds to listen. The farther I got, the more confident I felt that if the Trains had left someone behind to defend, they would surely have seen me by now. However, if they hadn’t left anyone to guard the sword, I had to move fast since that meant the Brains were now outnumbered.

  The noise was getting fainter, so I assumed the action was getting hotter and heavier around our sword. That couldn’t be good. I had no idea how long the Brains could hold out.

  I had to move quicker or abandon my sanctuary.

  The crowd seemed to be screaming louder now, or maybe it was my breath whistling out between my teeth as I clenched the strap. I was too far away from my team now to hear a code word. My entire team could be screaming Xena at me and I wouldn’t know it.

  Enough time had passed. I needed to go for it. I stopped crawling, got into a crouch, and gripped the popper with my hands.

  It was do-or-die time. Probably die, but I didn’t want to dwell on that when I needed every ounce of courage to get the heck out of the box.

  Before I lost my nerve, I threw off the box and started running toward the enemy sword. To my enormous relief, there wasn’t a single defender at the sword. The screaming from the crowd was deafening now, but I didn’t dare slow down to figure out what was happening at the other end of the field. I dropped my popper and ran straight for the sword, grabbing the handle with both hands and yanking on it. It was harder than I thought to pull the stupid thing out. As I pulled, I glanced across the field. Mary Herman stood over our sword, pulling it out.

  Holy Excalibur!

  It was a race to determine who crossed the midfield first with sword in hand to win.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  ANGEL SINCLAIR

  Determined, I pulled at the sword with all my might. To my relief, the sword slipped out of the fake rock and into my hands. I turned to dash toward the midfield when I was pulled up short. A piece of my T-shirt was caught in the rock.

  No way was that going to slow me down.

  Gritting my teeth, I yanked hard. My T-shirt ripped off me with a sickening sound as cool air enveloped my torso. I ran with everything I had toward the midfield in nothing more than my bra and jeans. I could hear the crowd screaming in frenzy. My teammates were shrieking and my heart thundering. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion no matter how fast I pumped my legs.

  It was going to be close. I was faster than Mary, but the sword was heavier than I’d expected. Mary was stronger. We barreled toward each other, much like two medieval jousters ready to collide in a spectacular boom.

  Then something miraculous happened. Mary stumbled and went down.

  I was going to win it! The geeks were going to take down the jocks. I summoned every last ounce of strength and pumped toward the finish line when…

  Splat!

  For a moment, I didn’t comprehend what had happened. I faltered as I looked down at the front of my bra and the huge red splatter of powdered sugar on the left boob of my—oh, dear God, this couldn’t be happening—Hello Kitty bra. I stumbled to a stop. Mary was down on one knee, holding a popper I hadn’t known she had. When she fell, she must have picked up a popper from the ground and shot me. Or had she had an extra popper all along? Did it matter?

  A smirk blossomed across Mary’s face as she stood, picked up the Brains’ sword and strolled across the midfield. Cameron blew his whistle, signaling the end of the game. The Trains rushed toward her, whooping and shouting while I stood there, covered in red powdered sugar and no shirt, still holding the sword and not quite sure what the heck had just happened.

  Mary untangled herself from her teammates and walked over to me. “Nice bra. Hello Kitty? What are you, ten years old? Did you really think you could beat me?”

  Before I could say a word, she was swamped by her teammates, who were whooping, yelling, and slapping her on the back. Wally ran up to me, out of breath, and handed me the shreds of my T-shirt, which I pulled over my head.

  “Heck of a game, Angel.” He slapped me on the back. “You almost beat the jocks, and without the help of Colt McCarrell. An absolutely respectable showing.”

  I was still dazed. “I didn’t see her other popper.”

  “She picked one off the ground and shot you when she realized she wasn’t going to beat you. Lucky for her there was a bullet left. Hey, is that a cat on your bra?”

  I yanked the T-shirt closed the best I could, but it still gaped. It was a losing battle…just like the game.

  “Keep your eyes up here, okay?” I pointed to my face.

  Wally grinned. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

  Mark and some of the other members of my team came over
and patted me on the shoulder. “Not a bad performance, Angel,” Mark said. “The strategy, as crazy as it was, almost worked. Tough ending.”

  The fact that my teammates didn’t hate me made me feel a little better, even though we’d lost.

  Frankie dashed toward us, holding two buckets filled with bills and coins. “That was so exciting, Angel. I almost had a heart attack. People in the stands were completely losing it, screaming their heads off. What a fantastic game. People were practically throwing money in the bucket, they were so thrilled. We made a decent haul even if you weren’t helping us collect. By the way, I love your bra. Hello Kitty. Who knew? I never would have guessed you to be into that level of fashion.”

  “I am not into fashion.” My cheeks flushed. “Can we please stop talking about my bra? My aunt Dorothy gave it to me for Christmas and I didn’t have another clean one for today. I didn’t know it was going on display.”

  “I wish I could borrow it, but it looks too small.”

  “Frankie!”

  “Sorry. Just thinking aloud.”

  I half-heartedly shook hands with the other team—except Mary Herman, who had apparently deemed it beneath her to shake my hand—and mumbled, “Good game.” A couple of the jocks slapped me hard on the back with their congratulations, almost knocking me over.

  I just wanted this day over and out of my memory.

  Forever.

  Chapter Forty

  ANGEL SINCLAIR

  The next two days at school were mostly a blur. Somehow, I survived the agonizing loss to the jocks and the meows that followed me wherever I went. After the first few mortifying hours, I managed to tune it out. Frankie and Wally tried to cheer me up, but it didn’t help much. Wally was ecstatic with the money we’d raised and obsessed with figuring out how to apply his marketing genius to increase those funds even more.

  I was happy with the haul for Mr. Matthews, but they didn’t seem to understand the depth of my mortification. Numerous photos of me in that bra, taken from every imaginable angle, were being circulated with abandon around all of cyberspace. Colt was notably absent from school both days, and no one seemed to know what happened to him.