She tried to figure out what it was that the boy-crazy girls found so fascinating about boy’s butts, and had her head cocked sideways staring when she noticed that he’d stopped walking. Her gaze moved up his still boyish body and stopped when her eyes met his once again. This time she knew her face turned flame red.
Payton’s mouth twitched a little at the corners and he watched her for a second more, and then he was gone, through the door, and out of her view.
She had no idea what had just happened.
Lizzie realized that there had been silence in the principal’s office for a full two minutes, and she waited on the edge of her seat, like a criminal waits in the parole office to hear the ruling. Her father was the first out of the room, followed by a prissy Mrs. Henderson who looked down her pointed nose at Lizzie with utter disgust. Lou Ann was next, and Lizzie cheered inwardly when she saw the swollen black eye that she had caused. The last one out was Principal Whiteside who looked down at her solemnly and said, “Lizzie, I’d like to see you and your father in my office now.”
She wanted to cry, but she felt a little stronger when her father took hold of her shoulder and whispered, “Its gonna be okay, sweetie. We’re just going to talk for a few minutes.”
Yeah. Talk about the end of her life.
Payton couldn’t quite figure it out. There was something about the new girl that piqued his curiosity, yet he couldn’t quite put a finger on it. He couldn’t begin to explain it, but something, some power totally beyond him, was driving him, forcing him to dig deeper into the question of who exactly was Lizzie Benford. Maybe it was the fact that she was new and he had yet to learn anything about her.
He supposed that could be the answer. More likely, though, was that her innocent look didn’t quite fit on the body of a misfit. He barely knew anything about her, but he knew after watching the way she fought yesterday she sure was a tough one to beat down.
And yet, if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have sworn that skinny body, and those curious green eyes were meant for nothing more than studying books all day in a library.
He’d been so curious to know what had been the fate of her well-rumored meeting with the principal that he’d had to make up an excuse to get Mrs. Strickland to let him out of class.
She’d looked sort of cute- well, he’d classify her more as a curiosity- sitting there looking like a scared Halloween cat, dressed in all black with her black, curly hair flowing past her shoulders. He had to admit, he kind of liked her style in clothing. It wasn’t the same old stuff that all the other girls chose to wear. No, she did her own thing, and for that he had to give her at least a little respect.
What a pity it was that she hadn’t even been given a chance. Why was that, he wondered? He had barely begun considering the reasons when he heard his name being called from down the hall.
“Hey, Payton.” He turned and waved as Sam Ellis, a ninth grader, strutted down the hall.
“Hey, Sam. What’re you doing out of class?”
“Skipping, like you should be doing.” Payton just laughed.
“And have Mrs. Strickland get a shot at punishing me for it? I don’t think so.” It was Sam’s turn to laugh.
“That’s cool, man. Hey, did you see Lou Ann yet today?”
“Yep. Saw her on my way in to class this morning. She looked pretty rough. I’ll say one thing for the new girl- she’s got a solid right hook.”
“Looks like it. I hear Lou Ann’s planning something big time to pay back the new girl.” Payton had never been one to join in the fun, but he’d also never been one to stop it. Somehow, though, he didn’t think he liked the sound of that. Lou Ann could be one difficult Queen Bee to recon with when she set her mind up for revenge. Her nickname wasn’t “the Banshee” for nothing.
“Listen, I’ll catch you later. I’ve got to get back before old Strick finds out I’ve been gone too long.”
“Yeah. See you in practice.” They slapped high five and went their separate ways.
He turned the corner and nearly ran smack into Leena McLain, the hottest girl in the ninth grade.
“Hi, Leena.” He tried to make his voice sound confident, but he was sure it sounded like a hormonal eighth grade boys.
“Oh, hi Payton.” She sipped slowly from the water fountain, making him drool over her wet lips. “See you later, Payton.” She smiled and batted her eyes, then slowly sauntered away, swishing her hips delicately from side to side just for him.
He nearly passed out from the sight. He hadn’t had a care in the world about the insignificant opposite sex of women until recently. It seemed to hit him over the summer, when he’d gone swimming at the local pool with Bud, Hank, and Colin. Lou Ann and some of her friends had been swimming nearby and out of nowhere, wham, he’d noticed something fascinating filling out the top portion of their swimsuits.
He, of course, chalked it up to some minor summer illness, but the next day, and the next after that he’d grown consistently more fascinated with the large mounds of flesh barely exposed by those strapless bikinis the girl’s chose to wear. He decided he wouldn’t go to the pool for a week and see if that helped his predicament any.
It didn’t.
He’d finally broken down and confessed his terminal illness to his father one night after his mother had gone to bed. He didn’t want to depress her with the news of his ailment. He could remember quite vividly how hard his father had tried not to laugh, but had broken down anyway because of the serious, somber look his son was giving him as he broke the news. Payton wasn’t laughing. His father had tears in his eyes.
Payton had nearly jumped through the roof with joy when his father explained the real situation to him.
And when he’d arrived at school the first day of eighth grade, he’d look at the girls in a whole new light. One girl in particular was the hottie eighth grader Leena McLain. Man, would he like to get his hands on her.
But thinking about her wasn’t doing anything good for keeping his hormones under control, so he switched to thinking about football and all he enjoyed about the game as he made his way back to his seat at the other end of Mrs. Strickland’s room.
Since it was Friday and this would be the fifth game of the season, the older boys had promised Payton and his buddies that they could come along to the post-game party at one of the ninth grade boy’s barn. If they won, of course. But that didn’t concern Payton too much, considering that both the JV and Varsity teams were the number one ranked team in the tri-county area, and had been for the past five years. He didn’t for-see his team’s reputation going too far down hill- not since they were playing Valley View High, the last ranked team in the area.
As he changed classes he waved at his buddies, and at a few of the eighth grade girls that weren’t too shy to talk to boys, but his thoughts remained on the game and the post-game party. Coach had promised him the position of starting quarterback the first half of the JV game, and Payton was beside himself with nervous energy.
“Hey, QB,” Colin called from across the flow of teenage traffic moving along the halls.
“What’s up, wing man?” Payton flashed his buddy a quick grin and they slapped high five across the crowd.
“Ready for the game tonight?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Good, ‘cause you look like you’ve got ants in your pants. And I don’t think I need to remind you that Leena will be there tonight.”
“Yeah.” They’d already thoroughly discussed the rewards the ninth grade girls handed out to their favorite quarterback stars.
“Well, just remember, win tonight and you’ll officially be a god around this place.”
“Wait. I thought I already was?” Colin laughed as he walked away, because even though they both knew it was the truth, Payton never took it to heart. Maybe that was why he loved him like a brother even more every day.
Chapter Seven
“Are you going to game tonight?” Faith peeled apples and sliced them
into eighths over the sink, then handed them one by one to her two daughters as an afternoon snack.
“I don’t think so.”
“What? Why not? You’ve made excuses for all the other ones; I can’t wait to hear the excuse for this one.”
“We have a really big test coming up soon and I want to make sure I do really well on it.”
Her mother turned and put a slender hand on her hips. Lizzie was happy to see that at least a little flesh had returned to what used to be purely bone. She took a large bite of apple.
“Uh-huh. And what day is the test on?”
“Next Friday.”
“You haven’t made less than an A- all year. Why don’t you take your sister and go to the game tonight?” Faith watched the desperation fill her daughter’s eyes, but she refused to back down. She knew how hard it was to make friends in a new town- she’d been dragged around as an Army brat the first eighteen years of her life- but hiding away in a room studying for the rest of her life wasn’t going to help.
Lizzie could see that her mother wasn’t taking no for an answer, so reluctantly she agreed. Mary Catherine couldn’t have looked happier.
They filed in to the stadium with a wild mass of other students later that evening, and Lizzie tried to act like she wasn’t impressed. The football team had been one of the worst teams around back in Chicago, and they’d had the budget to prove it. But here, in Edenville, the JV team got to play in the massive stadium where the Varsity team played on Saturday nights. Football was a way of life here in this small town, and it was obvious by the turnout for even the Junior Varsity game.
There were huge concrete stadium stands on either side of the field, and a large press box at the top of the home team’s side of the stadium. Massive lights hovered on poles around the track that surrounded the field, and they were already lit and pumping out bright white light onto the field.
Lizzie grabbed on to her sister’s hand as they made their way up into the seating, and she purposely selected a seat far away from the other students, and more into the area where all the parents sat to avoid any confrontation. She knew very well that Lou Ann was looking for her chance to get revenge, and Lizzie certainly didn’t want it to happen tonight. She realized she couldn’t avoid it forever, but this one evening she just wanted to sit in peace and enjoy life for a while.
All the prissy cheerleaders with their petite little bodies and long perky hair pulled into ponytails on top of their heads, bounced out onto the field, and loud whoops of encouragement poured out from the fans. They carried big banners with them, and since Lizzie had never been to a game like this before she wondered what they would do with them. Soon enough, though, she saw them anchor the banners underneath the goal post and the football team lined up behind.
It took her breath away when the team smashed through and destroyed the banners in a matter of seconds. But, apparently that was what the cheerleaders had wanted because they ran in front of the team like crazed models on speed, doing somersaults and flips, and more gymnastics than Lizzie could name.
She felt a little spurt of wild jealousy and wondered where that had come from.
The first play of the game was a joke- DixieAcademy pushed through Valley View’s line like they were pushing through Jell-O, and the receiver ran the pass all the way to the in-zone. The crowd erupted into crazed applause. The cheerleaders did their touchdown cheer, then seven push-ups- which Lizzie couldn’t quite understand why they did that. She also wondered what they did when the score got really high.
By the middle of the fourth quarter she was so into the game that she didn’t even realize anymore she was standing up yelling like the rest of the fans, cheering her head off. She’d even memorized a few of the cheers, and secretly decided to practice one or two when she was behind her closed and locked bedroom door that evening.
She might even be a good cheerleader if she put her mind to it.
Payton, good ole number sixteen, looked up as the offensive team broke from the huddle to see if he could spot Leena in the crowd. Sure enough, he spotted her standing in the middle of the cool kid section wearing a pretty, light weight sweater that framed her body in such a way that she looked like a naughty little present all wrapped up just for him. He saw her wave out to the field, but he didn’t respond because he was supposed to be focusing on the game, not checking out who was in the stands.
But come on, the game was such a joke. Already Dixie had scored forty-nine points, and they had even let Valley View score a touchdown of their own out of sympathy. Even he could see that the cheerleaders were getting tired of doing push-ups by this point. If they did many more, they wouldn’t be very much fun at the post-game party that night. And no winning football man wanted his cheerleaders tired.
Number Sixteen had almost finished scanning the stadium, when an unfamiliar sight caught his attention. Over near the section where all the parents sat he saw the new girl, and what looked to be a slightly smaller version of her. What struck him as interesting was the way she was wildly yelling out to the ballplayers, her hands cupped around her mouth, giving it all she had. He hadn’t seen that much energy from her since the day she whooped Lou Ann’s butt.
Good for her, he mused as he stepped in the line and prepared to call the hut-hut.
And then everything faded from his mind. He used all the skills that his father had passed on to him by both teaching and genetics, and all the noise faded away. It was just him and the ball, and the receiver who at the moment was taking his sweet time breaking free from Valley View’s defense. But then, there he was, and Payton let the ball fly, soaring through the air as if he was really a pro player rather than an eighth grade second string quarterback.
He let the noise fade back in when the receiver crossed the goal line and the buzzer sounded the end of the game.
“Man, you sure did let that last one fly,” Colin congratulated him just outside the party with a big slap on the back.
“Yeah. Better hope the Varsity coach wasn’t there to see that one,” one of the ninth grade boys chimed in. “If he sees any of those, he’ll have you up playing Varsity before you even get in the door to ninth grade.”
That was pretty much what Payton was hoping.
“Come on, sixteen. Everyone’s waiting for the QB to get here so we can start the party.” Sure enough, when sixteen walked in, the band, which was really just one of the guy’s radios, started up, and the crowd let out a roar for the winning JV team. Payton could only wonder how impressive the party’s would be once they were on Varsity.
He had just popped open a can of soda when, as if by magic, the crowd parted and Leena McLain stepped through the mass of people swirling around. She was still wearing that form fitting sweater, and a pair of khaki pants that practically begged him to rip them off. Seeing as how he had never in his life come even remotely close to ripping pants off a girl, he wasn’t quite sure how to go about that. But, given the opportunity- and he felt like tonight might just be his golden one- he’d gladly give ripping pants off a go.
He felt the kick of his hormones as they shifted down to center just below his waist, so he settled back against the make-shift table to watch her as she came his way. He tried out the pose that he’d seen the male models make in all the magazines when they leaned back like they were bronzed gods. Apparently it worked, because she smiled at him, tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, then licked her soft, pouty lips and batted her eyes at him
He nearly died on the spot.
“Hi, Leena.” He took a sip of his drink and pretended he didn’t really want to figure out what was underneath that sweater.
“Hi, yourself, QB. That was some hell of a game.”
Was her voice just a little too sexy for her own good, or what?
“So, you came, huh? I was too busy playing to notice.”
“That’s okay. You looked really good out there.” An idea of sheer genius struck him and he smiled the smile he’d been practicing in the mirror
for just such and occasion. He, apparently, was right on the money because when he said, “You know who else is looking good tonight?” and slipped his arm around her waist, she blushed and smiled that sweet innocent smile that still didn’t hide the fact that she really wasn’t.
No one noticed, or at least they did a good job of pretending not to, when the couple slipped to back of the barn and shimmied up the ladder leading to the hay loft above.
Lizzie lay in her bed and slammed her eyes shut. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t hear the radio blaring over in Brian Hauser’s barn or anything. A single tear trickled down her cheek, and she wiped it quickly away. She buried her face in Skipper’s white fur and let the dog lick away a few more of her unwanted tears. Dogs were always good to have around when your heart was breaking.
Why? Why did she have to be the one kid in school that no one would talk to, and insisted on picking on? If she ever got the chance to move back to Chicago she swore she would never pick on another geeky kid again. She’d even sign a blood oath if that meant she might be released from this misery. It was so bad, she thought miserably, that it was almost as if being associated with her was like signing up to participate in a swim across a toxic waste dump.
Come on, she couldn’t be that bad, could she?
She’d just been labeled wrong that was all. She did her own thing, and lived her own way, just like that Payton. But instead of people falling all over her like they did with him, they fled the opposite direction. And she was getting sick of it.
She made up her mind right then, as she wiped away the latest tear that had fallen, that no longer would she worry about what anyone said. She didn’t care anymore if people tossed green beans into her backpack, or wrote nasty messages on her locker. She was immune to it and that was final. From this moment forward she would hold her head high and give anyone who tried to tear her down the hell that they deserved.
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