Coach Scott knelt beside me with an ice pack. “What’s up?”
“Killed my ankle.” I swung my leg up onto the bench. “Forty four came down on it.”
“I saw that. If it hurt you, why didn’t you come out?” Coach Scott unlaced my sneaker and pulled off my sock. My ankle was pink and swollen. I scowled out at the court. Mother puss bucket!
Coach Scott squeezed my ankle, rotated it a bit, and kept an eye on my face to gauge the pain. I wasn’t giving anything away. I watched Chaz bring down the ball and throw it to Bulldog thirteen, who scored on the fast break.
“Oh, come on!” Coach screamed.
Freezing cold made me jump and look back to my foot. Coach Scott was holding the ice pack on my ankle.
Beth crouched beside us, and I forgot about the game. “You out?” she asked.
“For today he is,” Coach Scott said.
“Just wrap it. I’ll be fine,” I said, for Beth’s benefit, knowing Coach wouldn’t put me back in.
“It was wrapped and you aren’t fine,” Coach Scott said.
“Is this the same one we munched that first day of LCT?” Beth asked me.
“Yeah.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That stinks. It hasn’t been bothering you all this time, has it? Because it would be stupid to work out on a bum ankle.”
“It’s been fine,” I lied.
Beth whacked my shoulder. “Monday we’ll do some therapy on it and work the ground bag, okay? Come a half hour early and soak it in the hot tub.”
“Okay.” That lightened my mood. Beth was going to help me. In a hot tub. I yanked back the reins of my imagination and tried to think seriously. Maybe Beth knew how to make my ankle strong again. If I’d told her it had been bothering me, this might never have happened.
The game was tied at thirty-seven when the buzzer sounded for half time. We should have been fifteen points ahead, by my count. Too many missed shots. I limped into the locker room and braced myself for a round with Coach Van Buren. We were playing rotten, and Coach lived for moments like these. Even if we were ahead by fifty, Coach would find some reason to chew us out, but today he didn’t need to be creative.
Coach spat and swore and insulted our mothers. Then he prayed and we filed back out of the locker room, heads hanging in shame. I wondered what the Prude Patrol would think of that.
“Garmond.” Coach put his arm around my shoulders. “This game doesn’t matter. You take it easy and let that ankle heal. We need you on the court this season, you get me?”
Wow. “Yes sir.”
“Good. Don’t be a hero until it’s worth it.”
Coach headed back toward the bench. I stood alone a moment, faced the drinking fountain and grinned. It felt good to be needed. To matter.
I joined the team on the sidelines as our Pilot Point Christian School cheerleaders finished up their halftime dance performance.
I folded my arms. No offense, but our cheerleaders were pathetic. First of all, they had to wear knee-length grandma skirts. Second, any song they danced to had to be approved by our school principal, Mr. McKaffey. Third, none of them could dance anyway. And there’s nothing wrong with that; I couldn’t dance, either. And that’s why I never did it in front of an audience.
Because that would be stupid.
Yet there our girls were, bopping and clapping to a Disney channel song. So sad. And Trella-the-troll was out front, leading the pack like she was all that and a side of fries. Finally the music stopped and they went into a cheer.
“The lions are here, to prove that we are tough.
Anything but first, is just not enough.
Now, crowd, yell with us. Get up on your feet.
We’ll yell the words. And you will repeat.
PPCS. PPCS.
Look out, step back, clear out of the way.
Pilot Point Christian School will blow you away.”
Parents and friends cheered. The PPH people booed. Typical away game. Not a bad cheer, though, even if they couldn’t dance. They jumped and kicked their way off the court. I grabbed a ball and limped toward the hoop.
A techno beat throbbed from the speakers. Cheerleaders in blue and white sprinted out from all sides of the gym. A girl with a blond ponytail scared the living daylights out of me, whipping my arm with her hair as she blitzed past.
The girls got to the middle of the gym and started dancing. Serious dancing. Laker Girls dancing. I backed off the court and leaned against the wall beside Kip.
Pilot Point High had three times as many cheerleaders as we did. They had cute little royal blue and white uniforms. And while our girls had bopped to Disney, these girls were rockin’ their bodies to some Black Eyes Peas.
They could just take their time.
Not only could they dance, they could flip too. Cartwheels and backflips and throwing each other. The song tapered off and the girls did a cheer. I don’t even know what they said, but at the end, the blond one who’d scared me off the court came running from one end of the gym. She flipped into an Olympic caliber tumbling routine, bouncing and twirling past the others, who’d formed some kind of precarious standing pyramid. The tumbling girl stopped, then flipped her way back to the middle of the pyramid thingy and landed in the splits.
Whoa.
I wondered if she had a date for homecoming.
• • •
That weekend I downloaded a bunch of free apps for my phone. I got one that made gun noises, one that changed your voice, and one that sounded like a whip to use when Meagan got all old lady on Kip. I also got a bunch of girl’s cell numbers from Kip, and I used “my precious” to text them. Kip seemed to think this strategy might reveal my potential dates for homecoming. All the girls texted back, mostly to ask: “Who is this?”
But once they figured out it was me, I was surprised how many were willing to chat about nothing. I mean, most of them were my Facebook friends already but for some reason, it felt so much cooler to talk by cell phone. After the exchanges, I had at least five possibilities I was willing to ask to homecoming, who I thought might say yes.
But I hadn’t given up on Beth yet. I still had four weeks. And it would be easier to ask someone I knew. I didn’t do so well talking to pretty girls until I got to know them.
Monday morning in Harris Hall, everything backfired.
“I heard you’re going to homecoming with Lexi and Emma,” Arianna said. “How are you going to manage that when you already have a girlfriend?”
I started at her. She was wearing a floor-length red skirt that looked like it came from my grandma’s closet. “What?”
“They were fighting about it after Sunday school,” Gabe said. “It got kind of ugly.”
Girls were fighting over me? Sweet. “I haven’t asked anyone to homecoming,” I said, loud enough so that Beth could hear. “And I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“That Kimatra girl said she was your girlfriend,” Arianna said. “And Lexi said you texted her.”
“I did text Lexi. I mean, I asked her if she was going. But I was just making conversation. And I don’t know any girl named Kimatra.” I’d remember an exotic name like that.
Arianna raised one side of her unibrow. “You also ask Emma if she was going?”
“Yeah.” What was the big deal?
Gabe turned back to his desk and opened his Japanese textbook. The cover slapped against the desktop, and a heavy sigh hissed out his nose.
“What?” I set my jaw. The commander of the Prude Patrol might be holding his tongue, but his body language was screaming. “Say it, Gabe. Tell me what I’m doing wrong today.”
But Gabe wouldn’t look at me. “It’s really none of my business.”
“Right. You already don’t think I’m good enough for any girl in this room. You made that clear at LAX. So now I can’t talk to other girls, either?”
He turned a page in his book. “None of us are good enough for anyone, Spencer.”
“Just tell me.” I wanted to have th
is out now and be done with it.
Gabe turned another page. “You’re treating them like meat again.”
Back when I’d had a thing for Isabel, Gabe got all in my face about it. Personally, I think he just didn’t like me scamming on the girl he liked. “How did I do that?”
Gabe turned in his chair. “With your phone. It’s like you threw out a half dozen fishing lines baited with questions about homecoming. Of course girls would like to go to homecoming with the basketball team captain. So they all answer you, get their hopes up, start looking at dresses. Then you keep texting them, slowly reeling them in.” He glanced across the room at Beth. “But you don’t want to go with any of them, do you?”
What I wanted to do was get into Gabe’s LCT class and use him as a punching bag. How did he do that? Call me out in a way that I could do nothing but agree? I lowered my voice. “Are you some kind of mind reader?”
“He has sisters,” Arianna said. “He knows how these things work.”
“His sisters are kids.” Two identical, curly haired dolls.
“My sisters are in seventh grade,” Gabe said. “And ever since school started, boys have been calling for Mary. Every day. I don’t like it.”
“So you’re appointing yourself as every girl’s big brother?” I asked. “That’s a lot of girls to watch out for.”
“It’s just that most girls are really sentimental, Spencer,” Arianna said. “If a guy starts paying attention to a girl, texting her and stuff, that’s usually a sign that he likes her. Lexi showed me all your texts. She saved them and reads them over and over. She read me a few before Sunday school started, and when Emma heard, she got mad.”
“I was just making conversation!” And I hadn’t texted any girl anything sentimental.
“I’ll try to explain to them,” Arianna said.
“I just want you to think about how you might be messing with them,” Gabe said. “That’s all.”
“Fine.” Score one for the Prude Patrol. I clearly didn’t know anything about girls.
• • •
That evening, I stormed the streets of Pilot Point on my way to C Camp. Coach had made me sit on the sidelines at practice and used Chaz to run plays. And Chaz had gloated about it in the locker room, as if he was some sort of threat to take my place. I didn’t like his attitude or the way he was trying to divide the team. A divided team was weak.
Which meant I couldn’t afford to stay mad at Gabe, or team Alpha’s points would fall into the red with my personal points. Stupid, four-eyed, loafer-wearing, Boy Scout, anyway.
To top off my fabulous day, when I got to C Camp, Beth wasn’t there. After she’d told me to come a half hour early and soak my ankle in the hot tub. Not cool. Mario, C Camp’s physical therapist, looked at my ankle and declared it to be a Grade II sprain. Not the worst, thankfully. He wrapped it and told me I should stay off it for at least another week.
I limped out to the open practice area and found Beth waiting. She’d dragged a six foot boxing bag to the mat and dropped it on its side. Today, her T-shirt was white with a baby chicken in the center and read, “One tough chick.”
“Where you been?” I asked. “I thought you wanted me to come early?”
“Didn’t you?” She tossed me a pair of sparring gloves. “I thought Mario wrapped your ankle?”
“He did. But I thought you were going to help.”
“Mario does better than I could. How does it feel?”
“It’s great,” I said. “Couldn’t be better.”
“What’s your problem, Tiger? You get de-clawed or something?”
Great. Now she was mad at me. “No. Nothing.”
“Well, you’re bugging me. Take it out on the bag. I’ll call.”
I limped over to the black leather bag and knelt down beside it.
Beth yelled. “Guard!”
I moved into the guard position and started beating the bag. The purpose of working the ground bag was to practice different hold positions and strikes on the floor. I threw everything I could think of at the bag until Beth yelled. “Side mount!”
I slid into the side mount position and slammed my elbows and knees into the tough leather. It felt good to beat on something and didn’t bother my ankle at all.
Being a jerk to Beth wasn’t going to win me a date to homecoming, though. I elbowed the bag again and tried to rethink my strategy.
• • •
I sprint down the streets of Pilot Point at night, looking over my shoulder every few yards. I’m wearing a fancy black suit, and my shiny shoes have no traction on the sidewalk. I’ve lost my precious iPhone and have no way to call for help. I need to hide, but I’m afraid if I stop, I’ll die.
Behind me, tires skid across the pavement as a vehicle rounds the corner. Lights illuminate the street and stretch my shadow up the pavement, long and slender like that creepy video game psychopath.
Then for some reason I stop running. The car stops too. And all goes black.
I sat up in bed, my pulse a revving Nascar engine. My hands were trembling, but I managed to flick on my bedside lamp and reach for the journal Prière had told me to start.
• • •
Two weeks later, my LCT skills had greatly improved, but I still couldn’t beat Beth on the mat. On top of my daily workout at C Camp and basketball practice, I ran a mile, and every night in my room did a hundred each of squats, push-ups, and sit-ups. But I still couldn’t move as fast as Beth—think as fast—or anticipate her attacks.
Monday the tenth. Two weeks remained until the homecoming dance, and I still hadn’t asked Beth or anyone else. At training she darted around me, throwing jabs and punches. I was supposed to be trying to pin her—something I’d never managed—but today it was all I could do to block her strikes. I backed up and watched her bob around on the mat. Forget this. If I could fake her out—like I did playing basketball—maybe I could get behind her for a chokehold. Or sweep out a leg.
“What are you doing over there?” Beth asked.
I crept toward her. “Thinking.”
She stepped back and crouched. “Well, think faster. Your opponent would have been out of here long ago.”
I darted forward and pulled back my arm, faking a punch to her temple. She raised her arms for an X block. I grabbed her right wrist with my left hand and pushed her arm across her throat, then hooked my right arm around her neck, pinning her arm between us. I tugged her right leg out from under her with my ankle and we fell to the mat with me on top. I squeezed, pressing her bicep against her throat. She tried to knee me, but couldn’t reach. Her legs thrashed for a moment. Her free hand snaked up my shirt and pinched the skin on the side of my waist.
I growled without moving. That really hurt. But I had her. I so had her!
She continued to pinch—I was pretty sure she’d broken through the skin—but I hung on. Finally she let go and slapped my side twice.
Yes! I released her and sat back on my haunches. She remained on her back, massaging her throat, then her arm. Then she lifted her head off the mat and looked at me with one eye open. “That was awesome.”
Her head fell back to the mat, and she lay there like she was dead. I’d pinned her, finally! I sat, catching my breath, thinking of other ways I could use basketball and LCT together. Maybe this was the connection I’d been hoping for. A skill I had that others didn’t.
Beth still lay on the mat. Her T-shirt today was light purple and had a scowling cookie face on it and the words, “Tough cookie.” I crawled over and looked down on her face. Her cheeks were flushed. Her ponytail flew out above her head, and wisps of sweaty hair clung to her cheeks and forehead. “What, I pin you once and you give up?”
Her lips twitched in a smirk, but her eyes remained closed. “I’m taking five.”
I’d impressed her. And she was just lying there, looking all cute and vulnerable. She had to like me, right? Spending all this time teaching me LCT. Letting me hit her. This was as good as it might ever get. Thoug
h I was terrified, I leaned in and closed my eyes. I pressed my lips against warm flesh and a rush of heat pinged through me. I’d done it! She was like a rock, though. No reciprocation, no—
“What are you doing?”
I opened my eyes. Beth held her finger against my lips, the look on her face anything but romantic. I scrambled back to sitting, my face on fire.
She propped herself up onto one elbow, her dark eyebrows furrowed. “Not happening, Spencer.”
My mouth grew nauseously moist, but I managed to utter, “Why not?”
She slouched back in a heavy sigh. “Come on! I’m trying to help you.”
Got to get the whole mess out in the open. “I want you to come with me to the homecoming dance.”
She chuckled, her dimples mocking me. “Sorry. But I’m going to have to say no.” She offered a sympathetic smile. “I don’t like anybody like that, okay? And I won’t.”
“How can you say you won’t like anybody?”
“Because God called me to serve in Special Forces. And I don’t plan to get married until I know that God is done using me in the field. And romance makes you weak and vulnerable.”
My eyes bulged. “Married?”
“No one has ever kissed me, Spencer, and no one will unless God releases me from this call and sends me a husband.”
“A husband?” What was up with her use of the way-past-serious words?
“I’m saving my first kiss for marriage, duface.”
“Oh.” Wait. “What?”
She scrambled to her feet and headed toward the locker rooms. “You did good today,” she called as she strode away. “Talk to Mr. S about getting into Boss Schwarz’s class, okay?”
“You’re not going to train me anymore? Because of what I did?”
She turned, continuing backwards, and lifted both arms in the air. “Sorry.”
She disappeared into the locker room. The door made a soft clump as it closed. I fell back onto the mat, lying flat on my back. I wanted to die. I couldn’t believe it. I’d just screwed up everything.
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