Dangerous Play

by Emma Kress

  When we jog out onto the field, I hear my name and search the stands. Uncle Bob and Eileen are there, but so is Mom. They’re standing, holding their hands high, a giant banner blazing #11 between them. And beneath the banner sits Dad. I can’t believe he came. I can see the grimace of pain beneath his smile, but he’s smiling all the same. I blow him a kiss and wave big. And then I notice the boys’ soccer team.

  And Grove.

  I stare at him for a moment, and he lifts his hand a touch off his knee in a small wave. I give him one back and run to the center for the coin toss.

  We’ve gone further than any Northridge field hockey team ever has. But it’s more personal than that. All these people drove all this way for us.

  For me.

  Quinn takes right forward, Sasha’s favorite position. And she’s the best for it. Bella moves to Quinn’s center. I play left center. Ava jumps up to center middie, and Dylan suits up for goalie. Coach reshuffled the deck and dealt a perfect hand.

  I dip low to the ground. My stick’s strong in my hands. This body has flown up buildings, somersaulted over gravestones, leaped across a bridge—if I can do that, I can do this. I slap my stick against the turf. This is our field now.

  The whistle blows.

  A gust of wind cuts across the turf and slices through my leggings, but it just drives me faster. Bella takes the ball off the top and passes it to Quinn, who races downfield. Sommersville pushes it back, but Kiara stops it, passing it to me. I spin around one of theirs and flick it to Bella, who barrels down the center.

  For the whole first half, we keep the ball down at their goal, but we can’t land it. Nikki and the others cheer us from behind, but no matter what we do, we can’t break their defense.

  By the time the half hits, we’re out of breath and tired. But I still feel triumphant. It’s 0 to 0, but we’re close. We’re closer than they are.

  At the top of the second half, they get it away from us, but Nikki lifts it, and the ball arcs through the air. Liv stops it midair, controls the drop, and curves it my way. Nobody’s open, so I plow forward, gliding around their girls like I’m on skates. Finally, I slide it toward the goal. The goalie dives for it. It slips between her arm and the ground, rolling to a stop against the back of the goal.

  Liv screams so loud as she races toward me I feel like she’s jumped into my ear. Bella punches my shoulder so hard I’m sure it’ll welt up later. But I don’t care. We scream all the way back to position.

  Now we’re winning. All we have to do is hold it.

  Sometimes it’s hard to hold steady. Sometimes being the one on top makes you an easy target. But, today, we hold it.

  The game ends: 1 to 0.

  Liv, Nikki, Cristina, and I do running aerials toward the sidelines, all in a row. Kiara does three backflips. Big Bob and my parents stand and cheer—even my dad. Eileen bounces up and down with her stupid camera. And Grove. Grove is standing. And clapping. And looking at me.

  We’re off to sectional finals.

  * * *

  The week is just one long sigh while we wait for the next game. I’m itching to crash another party, because the high of kicking some jerk’s ass would be the cherry on top of winning semifinals, but I don’t even suggest it. I think of what Nikki said. We just have to wait.

  The boys’ soccer team heads off to their semifinals on Thursday. Since it’s during the week, we’re thankfully not expected to go. Because even though that night feels more clear now, I’m still not sure I want anything to do with Grove. Or any boy. Still, I’m glad they win. They’re heading to sectionals too.

  Friday night is Halloween. I so want to dress in black and parkour our way through the parties that are bound to happen, but Ava suggests we rally around Sasha. So we crowd into the Dobsons’ kitchen and eat pizza, taking turns running to the door to feed candy to the young goblins, princesses, presidents, and sports heroes from their neighborhood. My favorite costume has to be the trio of girl soccer player zombies with scooped-out soccer balls as their candy buckets. After the doorbell quiets, we pile into the triplets’ basement, surrounding Sasha on the big blue boat of a couch watching all the cheesy rom-coms she loves and knows by heart.

  * * *

  As we board the bus the next morning, clouds hustle across the new November sky. The sun glints on candy wrappers blown into gutters. One tree, festooned in toilet paper, looks like a crazed bride. We’re off to play Greenville in Rome.

  This time, with Sasha. She’s been cleared to play, but you’d never know it by looking at her. She’s ghost-pale. Her sisters sit on either side of her squeezing her hands, but her eyes look far away.

  I think she’d be fine if it was any team other than Greenville.

  Even in the locker room she doesn’t look right.

  Ava crouches in front of her, resting her hands on her knees. “You can’t let this psych you out, Sash.”

  Sasha nods, but I can tell she’s not with us. She’s reliving that moment on Greenville’s field.

  “I mean, you came back,” Dylan says to her.

  “What?” Sasha focuses on Dylan’s face. Dylan’s roots are growing out, and her hair is half natural and half bleached as she smooths it into a ponytail.

  “You came back,” she repeats. “They should be scared of you.” Dylan tugs her ponytail tight.

  Dylan lifts her foot up onto the bench to tie her cleat, completely oblivious to the effect she’s had on Sasha. Sasha’s eyes are focused. She’s back. “Thanks, Dylan. I never thought of it like that.”

  “Yeah.” Bella pats Sasha’s knee. “You’re stronger because of it.”

  Dylan smirks. “Let’s kick some ass. We owe them a beating.”

  We jog out onto the turf. It’s cool—autumn-perfect game weather. The stands are dotted with family: Mrs. Liu, Ava’s folks, Mrs. Dobson, Mrs. Morrison, Mr. Walker, and Cristina’s whole family, with her bouncing little sisters dressed head to toe in blue and green. But this time my parents didn’t come, or the soccer team. Just Uncle Bob, Eileen, and the camera.

  At the huddle, Ava says, “Let’s return to our roots.”

  So we do. We scream, “Sticks Chicks!” and smash our sticks together.

  Right away, Greenville takes the ball and races it downfield toward Ava, guarding the goal. Dylan steps in and drives it back upfield. I stop, turn, and pass it toward Sasha. But she hesitates, and they steal it again. Liv nabs it this time, passing toward Quinn, but they intercept it and sprint toward the goal. They’re racing, outpacing, out-dodging us until somehow it deflects off Ava’s pads into the goal.

  They score.

  Coach screams us back to position. “Cristina! You want your camera? You’re not taking selfies. Move, girl! Michaela! Lay down the coverage. Zo! Run. Get there yesterday!”

  Greenville grabs the ball off the break but they bungle a pass, and Liv snaps it away, passing it to me, and I sprint. I tear up the field so hard I could beat Liv. I swerve around their sweeper and push it to Quinn, who slams it home.

  But I can’t help but feel like it’s luck—luck that they bungled the pass, luck that I raced so fast, luck that Quinn hit it just right.

  Luck doesn’t win games.

  They score another. And while we keep them from scoring any more, we can’t lift off our one point.

  It’s 1 to 2 at the half.

  I refuse to be this close and not take it home.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  AT HALFTIME, COACH PULLS US into the huddle. “Look. I know I’m hard on you. You’ve been through a lot.” She puts a hand on Sasha’s shoulder. “You girls have taken this team further than it’s ever gone. You’ve practiced hard, played big, dreamed bigger.” She looks around the circle, meeting our eyes. “But this isn’t the end. You don’t get to rest. You need to play as big as you dream. You owe yourselves that. You are going to States.”

  “Let’s stick it to ’em,” Ava says.

  “Fock yeah!” Kiara yells, and Dylan laughs.

  When we race ou
t, we’re smiling, determined. They make it tough. They make us tougher.

  But this time the ball knows we’re home, and it always comes back to us.

  We win: 3 to 2. We have just one week to prep for Regionals.

  * * *

  Ava wants to celebrate with parkour. Which is exactly what I need. She picks a new playground, near Dylan’s. But when I get there, I realize it doesn’t matter that it’s new. It’s still a playground and I’ve grown tired of playgrounds.

  But I leap, twist, and flip with the others, trying to pretend this was exactly what this dark, cool, moonlit night had in mind.

  Despite being closest to her house, Dylan shows up an hour later than everyone else. And when she steps out of the shadows, her entire right side’s caked in mud from her sneakers to her hair. Her cheek is bloody.

  “What the hell happened?” Kiara asks.

  Dylan starts to tear up, but instead she shakes her head and screams. “I swear I’m going to kill that fucker.”

  “Who?” Nikki asks.

  “Kups. This is the third time he’s tried to run me over this year.”

  “Wait,” Liv says. “What do you mean he tried to run you over?”

  Kiara pours water onto the sleeve of her hoodie and tries to wipe Dylan’s cheek, but Dylan swats her away. “I mean”—Dylan’s jaw tightens—“that I’ll be walking on the sidewalk, and he’ll drive over the curb and try to hit me with his fucking truck.” She smiles a tight line. “It’s a little game we play.”

  Kiara drops her hand, and we all just look at one another. And all the bottles of rage inside me rattle on their shelves.

  We’ve got to do something. We’re the only ones who will.

  I don’t bring it up. I wait. I look at Nikki.

  There’s a snake in me coiling, shifting, ready to spring free of its skin.

  “We need to do something about Kups,” Kiara finally says. “This has to stop.” It makes sense that it’s her. She’s Dylan’s best friend.

  “What if we embarrass him?” Cristina asks.

  “How?” Michaela says.

  Every cheesy thing I’ve ever seen in a movie zips through my head, like screwing with his shaving cream or jockstrap. But none of that feels important enough. And I have no desire to go anywhere near his jockstrap.

  Liv tilts her head. “What does he love?”

  “His truck. The one he always runs me down in.” Dylan kicks a rock off the path.

  “That pickup with the camo flames and huge tires?” Sasha asks her sister.

  Bella nods.

  “Blech.” Quinn wrinkles her nose. “I hate that truck. It always takes up like three spots in the student lot.”

  “And what’s up with camouflage flames?” Liv asks. “Doesn’t he get that the whole point of flames is to stand out and the whole point of camouflage is to blend in?”

  I laugh.

  Dylan jumps onto a monkey bar and hangs for a beat. “One of my friends works at an auto shop. He could loosen—”

  I shake my head. “We need to keep this quiet. Just us.”

  Michaela raises her eyebrows. “Plus, we want payback, not a murder charge.”

  I pull my hoodie tight against the cool November air.

  We go home. That night, revenge and rage weave themselves into my dreams. And this time, I won’t let them talk me out of it.

  * * *

  On Wednesday, after Coach has run, yelled, and driven us into the ground at practice, we lie on the grass at the edge of the field, looking up at the leaves in the fading light. Cristina’s snapping pictures, and I wonder if the colors can possibly be captured. It’s so strange that the leaves are dying, and yet the way they go out is in these bold colors. It reminds me of this poem we read once in English—something about raging against the dying of the light. That’s what fall does. Every year. Again and again.

  I want us to rage bold like the leaves. But I want it to be the beginning of something, not the end. We’ve been brainstorming for days, but so far we’ve got nothing.

  Cristina lifts up on her elbows. “We could plaster his truck in gay pride stickers and pink unicorns.”

  Liv shakes her head. “That’s insulting to gay people and unicorns.”

  “Yeah. Not. A. Chance,” Dylan says.

  Bella pretends to gag. “You straight people can keep him.”

  “We don’t want him either,” Nikki says.

  We laugh.

  A bird spreads its wings across the pinkening sky. A black silhouette slicing through the streaks of sun.

  I close my eyes. Put myself back into that hallway, Reilly’s hands everywhere he didn’t have permission to be. I didn’t feel embarrassed. I felt scared. I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed that I couldn’t fight back, that even though he didn’t finish he still scared me so much.

  I still feel scared.

  I sit up. “What if we scare him?”

  “What do you mean?” Michaela asks, but the look in Nikki’s eyes, in Dylan’s eyes—even in the eyes of some of the others, fuels me.

  “Well, when guys do this to girls, it doesn’t embarrass them. It scares them.” I breathe deep. “I’ve felt scared.”

  Everyone’s silent. I shiver in the now-night air. I feel more exposed with every moment they’re quiet.

  “Hmm. Scaring him might teach him a lesson,” Michaela says. “Maybe.”

  “That’s reason enough for me,” Sasha says.

  “How in the hell do we scare Kups?”

  “He’s the size of a house. It’s not like we can just jump out and say Boo.”

  “We could fill the inside of his truck with bugs—fake bugs. Or snakes.” Sasha shudders. “I hate snakes.”

  “Oooh!” Michaela’s eyes widen. “What if we sneak into his bathroom and write ‘We’re watching you’ on the mirror and then when he takes a shower and the mirror fogs up the words will appear.”

  We all just look at her and bust out laughing.

  “What? I read it in a book!”

  “Of course you did,” Ava says. “And there’s no way in hell I’m sneaking into any room with a naked Kups.”

  “It’s gotta be something that’ll stay with him. Something he won’t get over in a hurry.”

  “We could call him every night at three a.m.”

  “We could follow him everywhere, so he thinks he’s being stalked.”

  “I know where to get a gun,” Nikki says, looking up at us.

  The silence is absolute. Even the trees hold their breath, the last leaves clinging to the branches, still.

  TWENTY-NINE

  A GUN.

  Nikki rushes to fill the quiet: “Of course, it won’t be loaded. We’ll be totally safe.”

  I imagine the cold steel against my neck. It must be the scariest thing in the world—one click, and your life could end. Everything stops.

  It’s perfect.

  “No,” Ava says. Ava, the one who pushed for parkour to begin with, the wild to my tame, says no. She turns away from Nikki to look at me. “It’s the wrong move, Cap’n.”

  “He attacked Dylan on the first day of school! Now we find out he’s been tormenting her ever since and you want him to get away with it? He could’ve killed her!”

  “That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it.”

  “He said shitty stuff about Sasha and me too,” Bella adds.

  “Saying ‘shitty stuff’ doesn’t mean he deserves to be a target,” Michaela says. “I thought we were talking harmless stuff. Not guns.”

  I turn to her. “Dylan could’ve ended up in the hospital—or worse. Nothing about what they do is harmless. Nothing about what they do deserves harmless. They wait till we’re alone. They see us as weak. They touch us wherever they want, whenever they want. They do not deserve our sympathy. We are in the right, you guys.”

  “Not if we start joining them, we’re not.” Liv’s voice. I can’t believe she’s on their side. “Look, Zo. I know you’ve been through—”

  I gla
re at her. “This isn’t about me. This has nothing to do with me. This has to do with Dylan and the fact that Kups is a certified dickhead. If assholes had to register with the state like pedophiles, he’d be first in line.”

  “Truth,” Dylan says.

  “I know.” Liv sighs. “I just think there’s a difference between what we’ve done before—which is help people who are in active danger—and what we’re talking about now.” She bites her lip. “Zo, it’s a big difference. I mean, guns? Really?”

  “Why not?” Nikki asks. “We wouldn’t actually shoot it or anything. We’d just scare the crap out of him. It’s like Michaela said: We’d just teach him a lesson.”

  “Don’t bring me into this.” Michaela puts her hands up. “This is not what I meant.”

  Nikki shakes her head. “We’d be giving a gift to the whole school. Why do we have to wait until someone’s about to get hurt to do something? If you knew someone was going to murder someone else, would you just”—Nikki throws her hands up—“I don’t know, go back to watching The Real Housewives of I Don’t Give a Fuck, or would you get off your ass, call the police, and do something about it?” Nikki’s almost out of breath.

  “Exactly,” I say.

  “Nikki,” Michaela says, her voice gentle like she’s talking to a wild animal.

  Which pisses me off more. We are not the wild animals here. We are not the ones who need the cages.

  “You have to see this is different from premeditated murder.”

  “Come on, Michaela,” I say. “We’re just scaring him.”

  Michaela shakes her head. “We don’t know if Kups is going to—”

  “Oh, please,” Dylan says. “I know. Kups is going to hurt people. He’s going to do it today and tomorrow and the day after that. He’ll keep doing it until someone stops him. Why can’t we be the ones?”