Tiffani frowned, making her normally angular face bunch up as her brows rose. “What do you mean?”
“You said your parents believed, not believe. You used the past tense.”
“Oh right. My parents died when I was young, before I moved here.”
Maddie nodded, her countenance serious. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t have known. So, I guess I owe you an apology for giving you shade on not talking about yourself. But I’ve barely told you much either. Aren’t we a pair?”
Maddie laughed loud enough to earn a “shush” from a fellow student a couple of tables over. She glared at him, then turned her attention back to Tiffani, who was giggling.
“And the safe side disappears just like that. Anyway, what I was trying to say earlier was I remember my dad working and my mother at home. He made most of the decisions for the household, but my mother was educated. She had her degrees, and she ruled the affairs of the household. They each had their roles, but, well I don’t know if I would call it power, but they deferred to the other when it came to the roles each had. At least that’s how I remember them. After they died, I came to live with my uncle.”
“What’s he like?”
“Rigid.”
Tiffani did not need to spell it out to Maddie. She knew that subject was closed. She turned her attention back to their assignment. “All the historic information we have supports the idea that women can handle battle, but since we are arguing for the opposite, maybe we can come at it from your angle.”
Tiffani shook herself from the brief reverie Maddie’s question had sent her into. “Yeah, let’s try that. Write down every way we can think of that societies have benefited from women not being on the frontlines of war. We don’t have to believe, we just need to ace the paper.”
Tiffani answered Maddie’s sly smile in kind. In that instant, Maddie felt like she and Tiffani were comrades. She liked the feeling.
Chapter Thirty
Media personalities, social scientists, and exasperated parents were fond of saying that millennials and Generation Z were addicted to the web and their phones. As if that addiction weren’t bad enough, there were also teens on the extreme end of the spectrum who created virtual worlds and lives online. Case in point: Tommy Johnson.
Outside of immediate friends, Tommy had little to say to anyone at school. Mrs. Lacy, head school counselor, was convinced he suffered from social anxiety disorder. Everyone else thought he was shy in the extreme. All were wrong.
Tommy had social skills. He just found most of the kids at Galvin High tedious. Why speak to people in the same town when you could video chat with someone from China, Aruba, or Finland? Why beg locals to sextext with you when girls from Rio were more than happy to video chat while lying naked on the beach? This is why Tommy was on his phone anytime he was not doing something else in classes, during lunch, even walking the hallways. Tommy was always nose deep in his phone talking to someone interesting, always conversing wirelessly with a person across the globe more worthy of his attention.
Today he was video chatting with a girl in New Zealand, hoping to get a better view of the skimpy shirt she was wearing. He should have been paying attention to where he was going.
Aden hung his head in exhaustion and annoyance. He had joined the football team to keep his stepfather off his back. He had no intention of trying to play or trying to start. He had a simple plan: Skate through the practices and just let his natural size get him in the game occasionally. No muss, no fuss.
His real father had completely shattered that plan. In the three weeks Adrian Kent had been back in Aden’s life, he had put Aden through his own physical conditioning. Worse, his father had mandated all new food choices: no cookies, no sugary cereals, and no fast food. If Aden was going to be large, his father made it plain, it would be through building muscle, not the size of his gut.
Aden had lost a ton of weight, and the coach had noticed. Being a backup lineman was out. Now he was a backup fullback, which meant more work and more running—everything Aden hated in life. He thought about quitting, but his father had nixed that notion as well. Dear ol’ Dad was even checking in with the coach to make sure Aden was not slacking off.
Aden’s internal bitching was interrupted by a hard slap on his back.
“Yo, Aden man, you gunning for my spot, bro?”
Aden turned to Andre, Galvin High’s star running back. As usual, an entourage of teammates followed close behind him, including Aden’s best friend, Ted. “That would be a negative. You can have the limelight . . . and extra practice time.”
“Then why you getting so ripped, bro?” asked Ted.
Ted was tall and lanky for a fifteen-year-old. He would be a shoo-in for the JV basketball squad, but his height was all he had. He inherited his father’s height and none of his athleticism. He was destined to be a bench warmer and a sponsored one at that. His father’s boostership of the school’s athletics was the only reason he was still on the team. Everyone knew it, and everyone teased him about it, leaving Ted a sour boy.
“Why are you checking me out so much? You switching teams?”
The knot of players burst into laughter. Ted responded by shooting Aden the bird.
“Chill out, Teddy,” began Aden, knowing that Ted hated the nickname. “My dad is just like, I don’t know, a freakin’ exercise nazi. All I’ve done for the last three weeks is go to class, go to practice, and then work out or run with him.”
Andre slapped Aden hard in a stomach that was quite smaller than at the start of the school year. “Well, that shit is working. Getting rid of that tubby tummy, then gone and added some speed to those white-boy legs. Still ain’t getting my spot though.”
Suddenly, a wave of brown liquid rolled into Andre. The shock of that sight aborted Aden’s comeback comment and put Andre on center stage.
“Hey! Watch where the hell you’re walking,” yelled Andre.
Tommy stumbled backward from the impact. His eyes followed his phone as it spiraled to the ground. In true Tommy mode, he went right to it, snatching it up. He turned it over back and forth to look for damage. Satisfied there was none, he mumbled a low apology and tried to step around the group. Andre grabbed him before he could take two steps.
“Hey, asshat! Look what you did to my shirt.”
Tommy looked at Andre’s face and the wet brown stain on the large football player’s shirt. “It’s a football jersey. It will wash out, along with the grass stains that are already on it,” he said. His voice was clear and sharp with impatient irritation.
Andre took exception to Tommy’s comment. “Oh, I’m sorry, little man. Did walking into me like a blind man inconvenience you or something?”
Tommy’s tone a moment before had clued Andre into his annoyance. Now Andre’s menacing and angry tone slapped Tommy out of the cyberworld and made him realize the full import of his situation. “I said I was sorry.” He took an unsure step back—right into Ted.
“Man, you really ain’t watching where you are walking today, huh, phoneboy,” said Ted. He reached out and pried away Tommy’s phone, then tossed it to Andre. “Sorry, Dre, but your uniform doesn’t amount to shit in this dweeb’s eyes.”
Andre caught the phone as easy as a throw from the school’s quarterback. “Yeah, I see this dude walking around school with his face in his phone all the time. Probably whacks off with it. Let’s see what game is so engrossing he can’t watch where he’s going. Whoa!” said Andre, surprise punctuating his voice. “Daaamn, look at this chick.”
Tommy broke away from Ted and jumped up to grab his phone. Andre held it high with one hand and pushed Tommy away with his other.
“Geekboy ain’t playing no game. He’s chatting with some fine-ass girl. You jerking off to her or something?”
“Give me back my phone.”
“Come on, Dre, just give it back to him. You know how this slosh is. A bomb could go off, and he wouldn’t know it,” said
Aden.
Andre switched the phone to his other hand to keep it from Tommy’s reach. “Going soft on geeks now, Aden? Has little Miss New Chick got you scared or something?”
Aden grimaced. The comment had hit a little too close to home. “Ain’t no one worried about that chick. Toss ’em around for all I care. Just saying it ain’t worth the effort.”
“Yeah, you might be right. Let me send a message first. See if she’d like to video hookup with a real man and not some chicken-chested nerd ball.”
“Give it back,” Tommy shrieked. Andre kept the phone out of reach as he moved away from the group to type. Tommy chased after Andre and struck him with his foot when he reached him. The kick caught Andre in the shin.
“Hey, you little shit.”
Andre swatted Tommy in the side of the head, knocking him sideways. He fell against one of the other players, who shoved him over to Ted. Ted slapped him twice in the face and turned to push him toward Aden.
Before Tommy could do anything, a foot connected with his face.
Chapter Thirty-One
“I think you need to reconsider, Madison. This could open a great many doors for you. It could change your life.”
Maddie sighed as she tried to gracefully extricate herself from Gavin’s cheerleading and basketball coach, Miss Samson. The short, muscular woman had seen Maddie hit ten jump shots in a row in gym class and now was executing a full-court press to get Maddie to try out for the basketball team.
Maddie had no interest. Declining the appeal was more difficult than it should have been. Something about the office full of championship trophies sang to the competitive spirit in her soul. Nonetheless, she had bigger fish to fry.
“I appreciate you wanting me to try out. But like I said, I’m too busy with other things I’m doing outside of school. Things that are . . . more important to me.”
“Fair enough. We should all be doing the things we are most passionate about. I don’t know if the world would be better if everyone did that, but it sure as hell would be a happier place. If you change your mind, let me know. Thanks for coming and hearing my pitch, as it were.”
Maddie smiled, gathered her backpack, and left the small office. She was heading down the empty hallway when she caught a glimpse of Tommy through a window. His fingers were dancing on the phone as he walked. Maddie’s eyes were following him as he ambled down the sidewalk right up to the point where he walked into a large football player surrounded by more players, all equal in size.
“Aaah, damn,” she uttered. She knew she was about to witness the most clichéd “jocks versus nerd” scene. Her higher self admonished the thought. Her darker side told her that clichés and stereotypes exist for a reason. Her frown deepened when she spotted Aden. This is gonna be a cluster.
Maddie placed her backpack on the floor by the door and stepped outside. Tommy was jumping up and down like a human pogo stick as he tried to get his phone back. She could have yelled out to leave him alone. She could have gone back inside to get Coach Samson. Could have, probably should have. Did not.
Maddie took off running the moment one of the boys smacked Tommy in the head. She altered course as Tommy was pushed toward Aden’s skinny, crony friend. She’d spent the last few weeks practicing and studying proper defensive combat techniques. She threw them out the window as she launched a flying kick toward Ted.
Her foot collided with his face, hard and solid. Blood exploded from his nose and lips. He careened backward toward the ground. Maddie had already forgotten him as she spun and front-kicked a boy to her left.
“Aww, hell,” she heard Aden say from behind her.
The remaining group stood looking at Maddie, mouths agape. She positioned herself to keep Aden in her line of sight but reached her hand out toward the jocks. “One, give Tommy his phone back. Two, hit him again, and I’m gonna hit you.”
The large boy in the middle—the apparent leader of this jock pack—sneered. “Bitch, please.”
He tossed the phone in the air. Tommy darted around Maddie, desperate to reach the phone before it fell to the ground. The distraction cost Maddie. Someone slammed into her, tackling her to the ground.
Ted had recovered and wanted payback. The training Vaska had drilled into Maddie took over as he straddled her and swung a fist toward her face. She blocked his punch to the side and reversed her arm to elbow him in the mouth. Blood sprayed down on her face as the sharp elbow opened a wound on his lip. Maddie then popped her hips upward. The move unbalanced Ted and gave Maddie enough room to swing one leg from under him. Rather than roll away, she hooked the freed leg under his arm and twisted her body to the side. It was a basic mixed martial arts move to go from a defensive position into an offensive one. She had poo-pooed learning it from Vaska but was grateful for his insistence now.
The leverage of the move reversed their positions. Maddie was now on top of him. She swung a right cross to the side of his head, then rolled off him. She felt more than saw movement toward her from behind. She had no time to evade it, so she tensed for the hit. It was just a push, but it knocked the wind out of her.
Andre advanced on her. “You think ’cause you’re a girl I won’t hit you? You don’t know how things work here, chica.”
Andre’s bravado was answered with a punch in the nose. Before Maddie could follow up, someone grabbed her from behind and placed her in a bear hug. He was too strong to break his hold, so she stamped down hard on his foot. Yelping, he released Maddie just as Andre was coming at her. She ducked his swing, then shot her leg out in a low kick.
She caught the jock’s leg on the side of his kneecap. Milliseconds later, a shrill whistle reverberated through the air, but the agonized scream of a teenage athlete drowned it out.
Andre dropped to the ground, his fellow players forgetting Maddie and Tommy as they rushed to his side. Aden rose from the group and advanced on Maddie with a look of pure violence.
“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST DO?!”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Hell descended on Principal Devin’s office. The devil, however, was absent. Even the Master of the Deep stepped aside at the almighty fury pouring from Coach Branford.
“Goddammit, Gene! That vicious little girl has ruined everything. He’s our best player, and he is gone for the season for sure. An injury like that could cost Andre his college career.”
Coach Branford’s bombastic voice poured through the closed door of Principal Devin’s office for everyone to hear. Maddie imagined that she could see the brimstone smoke from the coach’s fiery yelling curling from underneath the door. Principal Devin’s more reasoned tone kept her from hearing his response, but whatever he was saying, the football coach clearly found it unacceptable.
“Hell yes, that’s what I’m worried about, and that’s what his parents are going to worry about, Gene. No games, no college scouts at the games. No college scouts mean no scouts looking at all the other players we have at this school. That is unacceptable!”
Virulence suffused the words that had shot out of the coach’s mouth. Maddie could feel it like a hog felt a spear. Still, the coach’s anger was the least of her worries. She had felt righteous sprinting out to Tommy’s defense. Her mother would not see things that way. Whatever the coach was trying to achieve would pale in comparison to what her mother was going to do. She sighed and glanced over at Aden. He sat with his arms folded tighter than a wet knot.
“Stop staring at me!”
A moment later, Principal Devin’s office door slammed open. “Aden, I told you no more outbursts! Raise your voice again, and I’ll have you on Saturday detentions for three weeks.”
“For what? I didn’t even do anything.”
“You got that right,” said Maddie.
Aden jumped from his chair and took two steps toward Maddie. Maddie was on her feet in an instant but needn’t have bothered.
A stone voice reverberated in the room outside the principal’s office. “Son, if you want a world of hurt, take another
step.”
Mr. Kent’s commanding words froze Aden in his tracks, but only just. Shaking with anger, Aden sat back down. He refused to look at his dad, even after Mr. Kent stepped in front of him. Mr. Kent regarded his son a moment more, nodded, then trained his icy-blue eyes on Maddie. The intensity in them pinned her against the chair. Her defiant side wanted to hold his stare but wilted. She averted her eyes and looked down at the floor.
“Mr. Kent, so glad you could get here so quickly. We have—”
“One moment, Principal,” said Mr. Kent, cutting Principal Devin off.
Maddie heard three taps of shoes on the floor, then saw Mr. Kent’s feet blocking the tiny speck of loose carpet she had trained her eyes on.
“Young lady . . . it’s Madison, correct?”
Maddie nodded in the affirmative but did not look up. Something in the way he had looked at Aden made her want to hide. A tiny voice from her past screamed in her head—a voice she had not listened to, nor heard, since a fateful Christmas afternoon.
Bile rose in the back of her throat. She had made a silent vow to never be that scared little girl again. If she was not going to let terrorists reduce her to snivels, then the parent of a bully would not either. She looked up, but the fire she had summoned wilted. The cold stare Mr. Kent had directed toward his son was absent as he regarded Maddie. All she saw now were cotton ball eyes the color of blue.
“Yes. It’s Madison.”
Mr. Kent knelt so that he could look at Maddie straight in the eyes. “Did my son get into it with you again?” The sentence started with softness but ended with a razor sharpness that took Maddie aback.
“Um, aah . . . well technically, he did not.”
“Technically?”
“The other boys—the football players—hit a friend of mine. I got into a fight with them, but Aden didn’t get into the fight.”
The Madison Jennings Series Box Set Page 18