I glance over at her at just the wrong moment and the rock-hard skull smacks me on the top of the head. My eyes pop and black spots flutter before my eyes for a moment. Mal laughs out loud and catches me by the arm.
She chuckles. “You okay, Captain Smoothness?”
I shake my head and look at her. There are two Mals looking back at me, but they gradually melt into one.
“That hurt.” I grimace while rubbing the top of my head. “What do you mean I haven’t faced anyone as good as this halo girl before?”
She looks sidelong at me. “I’m just saying that she holds all these records in the halo league, and it might not be good to underestimate her.”
“Did you not just see that roll? Milky Way Henderson himself couldn’t have struck that roll. It is a work of art.”
Suddenly Mal grabs me by the arm and tugs me with her into a nearby bush. We crash into it, and both of us nearly tumble over.
“Hey!” I yell.
“Shut up! Take a look,” Mal whispers and pulls down some branches so we can peek through the bush.
She points toward a house with a moving van parked in the carport. A slender girl with golden hair hanging lazily to her lower back is carrying a cardboard box into the garage.
I stare after her for a second or two, and I’m halfway between shrugging my shoulders and turning back to Mal when the girl reappears from the garage. Remember that choral group singing “Hallelujah” in my room earlier? Well, they just showed up again, but this time they are singing, “LAAAAAA!!!”
“Oh my wow,” I mutter.
She’s the prettiest creature I’ve ever seen. Her eyes are sparkling sapphires, and her lips are as bright as red licorice. Her skin almost seems to glow like a translucent paper trying desperately to cover a shining star. She’s about as tall as I am, maybe a bit taller. She doesn’t seem to walk but float across the ground.
I feel myself wanting to go find a meadow filled with exotic flowers and pick every single one for her. I want to carve a massive piece of ice into a towering sculpture for her. I want to melt down all the chocolate bars in the world and create a river of chocolate that she and I can tube down together, locked hand in hand. I want to—
I feel a sharp jab in my side.
“Nimrod!” Mal whispers.
The spell breaks, and I glance over at Mal. “Huh?”
“You’ve got drool dripping down your chin. Close your mouth, idiot,” she says in a voice that doesn’t seem at all friendly.
I wipe my chin and blink a couple of times.
“Who is she?” I ask.
Mal sneers and let’s go of the bush’s branch, which smacks me briskly in the face.
“Ouch! What was that for?”
“That girl, my thick-skulled friend, is the halo that is going to try and stop you from getting a scholarship to Death’s Academy,” Mal says.
It takes a moment for Mal’s words to register in my brain. I pull one of the branches down and peer back over at the girl again. She flips her head slightly so her golden hair sashays from one side to the other. I feel my knees start to wobble again.
“But I was going to pick ice sculptures with—”
“What? I can’t hear you, Night,” Mal whispers.
I shake my head. “Uh, nothing.”
“You still think the Mikhail wonder roll is going to work against her? You can’t seem to stop your eyes from crossing every time you look at her,” Mal says and flips her head around so that her hair whips me across the face.
“Ouch! Watch it!” I exclaim.
I follow her out of the bushes.
“I’m going to tell coach that you should sit this one out. Your head’s not in the game, Midnight Smith,” Mal says over her shoulder as she storms away.
“What? Wait!” I call after her. I run over to her and grab her by her sweater sleeve. She rips her arm away from me.
“Whoa. Hey, what’s the matter?” I ask, completely flabbergasted by this hostile attack. She is walking even faster now. “Mal, hey. Come on, slow down.”
She spins on the spot, a nasty scowl slapped across her face. “I told you. You’re an idiot, and you shouldn’t be rolling today.”
“But why?” I ask.
Her eyes narrow. “One look from that girl and you’ll roll the skull in the wrong direction. You can’t even think straight when you look at her; you’re going to lose the championship for us,” she says, jabbing her index finger forcefully into my breastbone. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
Mal turns her back on me again and starts to walk away.
I rub my chest and grimace. “Do you have that instant ice spray in your backpack?”
She stops and glares at me over her shoulder. “Why?” she spits.
“Because that halo girl isn’t even going to make it to the championship game,” I say with a smirk.
Ten
I double myself over, tuck the ice spray under my arm, and scurry toward a nearby house.
“You speak golden retriever, don’t you?”
“What? Why?” Mal asks, trailing after me.
“I’ve got an idea. Can you help me translate?”
“I don’t speak golden retriever, but I know some basset hound. They’re similar enough,” Mal says.
“Perfect. Do you still have your dad’s old car magnet?” I ask.
“In my backpack.”
“Brilliant.”
Her dad’s car magnet is by far my favorite of her trinkets. Her dad used to use it a lot for his death work, but then he upgraded to the Car Magnet 2100 and let Mal have his old one. It is completely illegal for her to have it, but I won’t tell if you won’t.
The car magnet is ingenious. It detects and draws nearby cars to a specific location. How does it work? Have you ever been driving or been in the car with your parents and for some reason they make the wrong turn or go the wrong way? Of course, that’s happened to everyone. Eighty-three percent of the time, that’s the work of a car magnet. It scrambles the driver’s brain for a moment and draws them to where the car magnet wants them to go. We’re going to need it for my idea to work.
I work fast and get everything set up. I hide Mal in the same bush we were in when we spotted the halo girl. I’m on the opposite side of the halo girl’s front yard tucked behind the rose bushes with the golden retriever Sparky sitting at my heels. I’ve got Mal’s ice spray in one hand and one of the skulls in the other.
There’s a sudden movement in front of me, and I duck lower behind the roses. I peer through them to see the halo girl skipping into the back of the moving van.
“Woof-ity woofer woof,” Sparky grumbles.
I glance back at him. I have no idea what he’s just said.
“Woof-ity woofer woof,” he says impatiently.
I shake my head. “I don’t speak golden retriever,” I mouth back to him.
He sighs and rolls his eyes. He points his paw to his wrist, acting like he has a watch on it.
“Yeah, yeah, we’re hurrying,” I whisper.
I turn back around and peer through the rosebush. I can barely see Mal’s face poking through the bush on the other side of the yard. Just as we make eye contact, the halo girl strides out of the moving van with a box in her arms. She glides into the garage.
I give Mal the signal and she nods. I can see her working feverishly with the car magnet, trying to draw in a nearby vehicle.
“Come on, Mal, come on.”
It feels like an eternity waiting … waiting … There’s the sign! She gives me the thumbs-up. I have twenty seconds. I peek back at the house—all quiet. I spring from behind the rosebush and rush to the cement between the moving van and garage. I give the ice spray a couple of shakes for good measure and spray the ground. I create an icy path from the garage and curve it into the middle of the yard. It’s about fifteen feet long and a few feet wide.
I tear back to the rose bush and jump behind it. I glance up and see Mal’s car has just turned the corner and i
s heading down the street toward us.
“Come on, halo, come on,” I whisper.
Just then the halo girl comes skipping out of the garage, her hair bouncing one way and then another. An image of her and me wakeboarding down the chocolate river appears in my mind. I shake my head to clear it.
The halo girl’s foot hits the edge of the ice path and she starts to skid. Her carefree expression does a do-si-do to complete shock. I glimpse down at the back of my hand where Mal has written the command in golden retriever.
“Woofee-woofer,” I read out loud.
Sparky catapults from his spot and leaps through the rosebush. He gallops toward the end of the ice path, acting like he is chasing a butterfly. The halo girl’s arms are flailing as she skates toward the middle of the yard. I turn my attention back to the approaching car and grip the skull tightly in my hand. I jump forward, out from behind the rosebush, and roll the skull as hard as I can at the oncoming car’s tire. A chain reaction begins. Sparky and the halo girl reach the end of the ice patch at the same time. Her legs hit the side of his body and it sends her flying face-first toward the street. Just then the skull hits the front tire of the oncoming car and ricochets directly at the halo’s head.
A wide smile splits my face. Everything is working like clockwork. The velocity and trajectory of her head coming into the direct path of the rocketing skull is going to knock her out cold. Now I may be wrong, but being unconscious might make it hard to play in the skull ball championship.
My bliss is short-lived. I suddenly notice that the skull is rotating in the wrong direction and hooking to the left. It misses her, screaming wide by half an inch.
A gasp explodes from my body. The impact of the skull was going to stop her! She’s still flying toward the street and the oncoming car! I only wanted to knock her out, not kill her!
Just then, with reflexes of a jungle leopard, the halo girl’s hand whips out and catches a young tree sapling. Her grip tightens and it jerks her backward. Her momentum rips the little tree out of the ground, and she crashes to the earth.
The car speeds by, completely oblivious to the girl sprawled out on the pavement only a few feet away. My stomach is playing patty-cake with my tonsils. The halo girl gets up gingerly. Wincing, she brushes the rocks and dirt off of her back and shorts.
I’m glued to the spot, still in shock, when her eyes flick up and lock onto mine. She looks quizzically at me for a moment, and then her look darkens, and a scowl contorts her beautiful face.
“Hoodie,” she hisses.
“Ruh-roh,” I hear Sparky call out from the neighbor’s yard.
Like I said, I don’t speak golden retriever, but I’m pretty positive that is translated into “Oh, crap.”
I turn on the spot and run. I don’t stop running when I hit the end of the street; I don’t stop when I hit the end of the next two streets after that. Not only did my plan not work, but also in an hour when she sees me at the championship, there is going to be Heaven to pay.
Eleven
Night, where have you been?” Coach Madison bellows. “The game starts in twenty minutes!”
Coach Mist Madison was, according to the stories, a prodigious skull ball player in her day. The years haven’t been kind since then. These days she spends more time at the buffet table than she does at the skull ball field. Her head is a pink pumpkin with a black straw crew cut. Below her uniquely shaped head is her torso that can be best described as a bell made of gelatin.
She grabs me by the shirt and rushes me toward the locker room. “How can you be late on a day like today?” she asks and gives me a shake.
“Sorry, Coach. I kind of got sidetracked.”
“Mal says you just ran off, and she couldn’t catch up to you. Where were you running to?”
“Uh,” I stammer.
“Never mind.” With an out-of-breath huff, she heaves me through the door. “Get changed and be out here in one minute!”
I jerk open my locker and pull my neatly pressed uniform from the top shelf. Our uniforms are the same color and design as the hoodie team from Death’s Academy. Of course the main color is black, but it does have dark purple stripes along the collar, the cuffs of the sleeves, and down the side of the shorts. A stark white skull patch is over the left breast.
I throw on my bone-plated knee and shin guards and slide my rolling gloves over my hands. I glance at myself in the mirror and take a deep breath.
“Here goes,” I whisper and head out of the locker room.
I trot down the long concrete corridor that leads to the playing field. The opening at the end lets in a blast of bright sunshine. I take the last few strides and step out onto the playing field. With a quick look around, I can tell that it’s going to be a packed house. The stands are already almost full. Half the seats are blacked out with hoodies, and the other half glimmer with halos. The scent of orange blossoms and sea spray head butt me in the nose. I wince.
“Ugh. Too many halos,” I say under my breath.
The grass is pristine and meets the regulation length of one and a quarter inch. A glint of the sun’s rays reflects off the three newly minted gold scoring rings. I trot toward the outfield where my teammates are warming up.
“About time, Smith. I was going to start warming up to be the roller today,” Dred says in his slow, monotone voice.
“You wouldn’t know which direction to roll it,” I say, brushing past him.
Dred has always thought that he is a better roller than I am, but he also still thinks baby hoodies come from the vulture. No way am I having that conversation with him. He’s good at what he does, though. He’s our plower, and when he smacks into one of the other team, they don’t see straight for a week.
“I didn’t think you were gonna show up. I’ve never seen someone run so fast,” Mal says as she strolls over to me tossing a skull in her hand. “Don’t get me wrong. She did look pretty vicious with that long blonde hair and lollipop face.”
“Oh, shut up, Mal,” I grunt.
She turns on the spot and chucks the skull through one of the golden scoring hoops.
“Not bad,” I say.
“Yeah, but it won’t matter. I won’t get enough chances if your new roll doesn’t work,” she answers.
“Shh!” I hiss and look around to see if anyone else heard her. “You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”
She folds her arms, raises an eyebrow, and shakes her head.
“No.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Good.” A skull rolls to my feet, and I pick it up and start tossing it back and forth in my hands.
“Did you see him?” she asks.
“Did I see who?” I say distractedly.
“The coach from Death’s Academy.”
I catch hold of the skull and spin on the spot. My eyes dart from one side of the stands to the other. “Where is he?”
“In the Regent’s box, up near the announcers,” she responds.
I find the box, and, sure enough, I can see a man with long, slicked-back hair sitting next to the Regent. I gulp.
“Well you’d better start warming up. Game starts in five,” Mal says and heads over to the other scampers.
I nod and stretch my arms. My other teammates know that I don’t like to talk too much before a match, so they keep their distance. I get in my stance and visualize my new roll. I’m not going to actually practice it right now; I don’t want the halos to know what they’re in for.
I guess now would probably be a good time to explain to you shorties how you play skull ball. If you are at all familiar with your games like soccer, baseball, football, or kickball, you’ll notice some similarities. Don’t get any smart ideas. We didn’t copy it from you shorties. We’ve been playing it for over a thousand years.
First, let me explain what the field looks like. If you were looking at the field from the sky, you would immediately notice that it is shaped like a cone, very much like your baseball field. At the tip of the cone there’s a rectangul
ar box three feet wide by six feet long. It is painted half white and half black. It is called the coffin. The roller stands forty feet in front of the coffin. Twenty feet directly behind the roller is the “peak,” a small, raised mound with a white circle painted around it. The peak acts like a base for the offensive player. Up to five offensive players can be protected inside the peak at a time.
Sixty feet behind the peak are three golden rings spread out fifty feet from each other—one in left field, one in center field, one in right field. They stand ten feet off the ground and are six feet wide.
So that’s the playing field. Let me explain how you win. The first team to score twenty-one points is the victor. There aren’t any time restrictions. In fact, the longest skull ball match in history happened just over two hundred years ago. It was between the Reapers and the Harps. It lasted thirteen hours and twenty-nine minutes. Two hoodies were hospitalized, and I’m happy to say five halos were too.
You can score points in two different ways. When the roller rolls the skull, the offensive player can strike it and try to get it through one of the golden rings. It is extremely difficult. If you are successful, and the skull goes through the ring, then your team gets seven points.
If you don’t get it through one of the rings, then you’ve got to run for your life for the peak. The defensive players can “bury” you in three different ways. One way is by catching the skull before it hits the ground. Another is throwing the skull and hitting you with it before you reach the peak, and the last way is by throwing it to the peak-man who stands with his foot on the white circle surrounding the peak. If the peak-man catches it before the offensive player reaches the peak, then the offense is buried and the teams switch sides.
However, if the offensive player makes it safely to the peak, then things get interesting. When the next offensive player strikes the skull, the player inside the peak can leave the safety of the circle and try to get the skull before the defensive team does. If he does, then he tries to throw the skull through one of the golden rings. If he gets it through the golden ring before getting tackled or losing the skull, then his team gets a point and he can return to the safety of the peak. As you can imagine, the more offensive players you can get into the peak’s circle, the better chance your team will have of getting the skull from the defense and throwing it through the golden rings.
Death's Academy Page 6