Hell's Belles

by Megan Sparks

  “Yes!” Annie nodded fast. “Yes, I thought that too. I mean, I still think that. It’s just that I have something else I have to do on Saturday night.”

  “What’s more important than the dance?” Tyler asked curtly. He seemed less bewildered now, and more insulted.

  Moment of truth. She hadn’t admitted to being a roller girl the first time, but now she was determined to tell him. With a sigh, she reached into her backpack and pulled out a flyer for the Liberty Belles versus High Rollers Halloween bout.

  “I’m a roller girl,” she said, handing it to him.

  “A what?”

  “A roller girl. I’m on a roller derby team.”

  For a moment, Tyler looked like he thought she might be joking.

  “Seriously? Roller derby?” He shook his head. “Wow. I mean, I knew you hang out with those weirdos, but I just can’t believe you play.”

  Annie ignored the implied insult and began to speak in a long, breathless rush. “I really love it and I don’t want to let my team down. It’s a real sport. And it’s really fun. Not just to play, but to watch. There’s a great atmosphere and really cool music. I know the dance is a big deal, but I was kind of hoping that maybe you’d like to come and see me skate instead?”

  Tyler looked at the flyer for a long moment. “I don’t think that’s really my scene.” Then he stuffed the flyer in his back pocket, turned, and walked away.

  Annie watched him go, feeling the tears prickling behind her eyes. Obviously, Tyler wasn’t a boy who was used to being turned down. Especially by the new girl with the funny accent who played roller derby!

  Again, the image of them dancing in each other’s arms crossed her mind.

  “What have I done?” Annie whispered. “What in the world have I done?”

  That evening, Annie entered the rink with her skate bag slung over her shoulder and a scowl on her face.

  Jesse looked up from where he was toying with the sound system and immediately did a double take. “Hey, who are you, and what have you done with Annie?”

  Annie snapped out of her mood just enough to ask, “Huh?”

  “Well, you look like Annie, and you’re wearing Annie’s T-shirt, but the Annie I know usually shows up with a huge smile on her face. So who are you and what have you done with Anne R. Key?”

  Annie sighed. “Sorry, Jesse. I guess I’m just not having a great day.”

  “Hmm.” Jesse slid a CD into the player and hit a button. “Maybe this’ll help.”

  Suddenly, the rink was filled with the sound of The Killers singing “Smile Like You Mean It.”

  This time, Annie did manage a smile. Jesse was so sweet. “Thanks. I love this song.”

  Annie made her way to the locker room, where the girls were all talking in low, concerned voices. The minute she entered, they stopped whispering and looked at her with sad eyes.

  “Good news travels fast, I see,” she said, slumping onto a bench.

  “Well, yeah,” Lauren admitted. “I mean, Tyler Erickson doesn’t get turned down for a date every day.”

  “Tyler Erickson doesn’t get turned down any day,” Holly corrected. “Which is why you blowing him off for the dance is making headlines all over town.”

  “I didn’t exactly blow him off,” said Annie, kicking off her shoes and tugging her skates out of her duffel bag. “I would have loved to have gone with him. It was a schedule conflict.”

  The girls exchanged glances.

  “Yeah, that’s what we were talking about actually,” said Liz.

  “Look,” said Lauren gently, “ultimately the decision is yours, but we kind of put it to a vote. Some of us say it would be totally fine if you decided to opt out of the bout to go to the dance with Tyler. And some of us say . . .”

  “Some of us say that would be absolute garbage!” Holly piped up.

  Annie had a pretty good idea which side Holly had voted on.

  Sharmila gave Annie a hug. “Ordinarily, I’d say it would be wrong to skip a bout for a guy. But you’re new here, and you’ve never been to a dance before.”

  “And Tyler’s basically a god,” Carmen added with a grin.

  “True,” Annie said. “And that made it even harder to tell him no. But it still isn’t a good enough reason to miss the bout.”

  “I know,” said Carmen, looking sheepish. “Which is why I agree with Holly.”

  “It’s great that you want to honor your commitment to your team,” said Lauren. “We’re just saying that this one time, it would be okay to miss the bout.”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Holly, in a surprisingly calm tone. “I said the exact opposite. I mean, I like cute guys as much as the next girl —”

  “Maybe even more than the next girl,” teased Liz, waggling her eyebrows.

  “But life is full of tough choices, Princess,” Holly went on. “During the season, derby has to come first. Even if it means you won’t be on the dance floor on Saturday night.” She surprised Annie by giving her a hug. “But I just wanna say that I think it’s pretty cool that you decided to skate.”

  “Right,” said Sharmila. “But if you change your mind, just this once, that would be cool too.”

  “I missed a bout my first season,” Liz said, giving Annie’s shoulder a squeeze. “I was basically failing French, and there was a bout the night before my midterm exam. If I didn’t study, I would have crashed and burned on the test. So I skipped the bout and stayed home to hit the books.”

  “That’s different than a school dance,” argued Carmen. “That’s school.”

  “All I’m saying is that things come up,” Liz clarified.

  “She needs to be loyal to the team.”

  “And the team needs to be loyal to her.”

  As her teammates debated, Annie’s head swam. She knew it would be wrong to miss the bout, just like it would have been wrong to miss a gymnastics meet when she’d been competing at elite level. Other people were counting on her, and she made a promise when she joined the team.

  But her teammates — her friends — were telling her that given the special circumstances of the situation, they would understand if she chose the dance.

  It was the nicest thing they could have said.

  But she still wasn’t going to do it. She loved derby and she loved these girls. And she totally respected Holly and Carmen for being honest with her.

  “Hey!” she called to get their attention, then smiled around at the group. “Thanks, everyone. But the fact is I wouldn’t miss our Halloween bout even if the real David Beckham asked me to the dance.”

  They all laughed and started getting into their gear.

  On their way out to the track, Sharmila gave her another hug. “One more thing,” she said so that only Annie could hear. “If you guys are meant to be together, it will happen.”

  “I don’t know,” Annie said grimly. “He seemed pretty annoyed.”

  Sharmila gave a dismissive wave. “That’s how boys are. They pout. But trust me, if there’s really something there, it will work out. And if it doesn’t, it wasn’t meant to be.”

  Annie smiled. It sounded like good advice. Of course, coming from Sharmila, it was probably slightly biased. What guy wouldn’t give her a second chance?

  “Let’s go, girls,” came Coach Ritter’s voice across the rink.

  Annie didn’t have to be told twice. If there was one thing that was going to shake her out of her miserable mood, it was some high-powered derby action.

  They spent some time warming up and doing drills, and then it was time for another scrimmage against the High Rollers.

  “You’re gonna get a little taste of what you can expect at the Halloween bout,” Liz taunted. “And trust me, it’s not gonna be candy.”

  “Why are you guys dressing as vampires?” the captain of the Rollers, Allison
, shot back. “Because you suck?”

  Everyone on both teams laughed at that one.

  The bout began. The High Rollers took an early lead, but the Belles didn’t let it throw them. They continued to skate at full throttle and keep their confidence high.

  Holly made a great effort but didn’t manage to score before the other team’s jammer called off the first jam. Lauren, as pivot, was focused and determined, but the High Rollers had really brought it today. This was going to be a tough one to win.

  It was Annie’s turn to be jammer. By now, she had blown off some steam. She’d pushed the Tyler situation out of her mind. At that moment, the only thing she was thinking about was derby.

  Then she turned to see that the other team’s jammer was none other than Dee Stroyer.

  “Heard you turned down Tyler for the Halloween dance,” she scoffed. “Were you suffering from temporary insanity, or are you always that stupid?”

  “I’m not stupid.” Annie gritted her teeth, trying not to let Dee’s remark get to her. “I just have priorities,” she said in an icy voice.

  “Well, I hope you and your ‘priorities’ will be very happy together. I know Tyler and I will be when we’re making out on the dance floor.”

  Annie’s eyes flew open. “He asked you to the dance?”

  “No, but since you turned him down, I might ask him. I’ve had my eye on him since the seventh grade. Even back then, word on the spin-the-bottle circuit was that he was the best kisser in town.” Dee puckered up her lips and made exaggerated kissing noises.

  Was it possible? Would Dee have the nerve to invite Tyler to the dance? And if she did, would he accept?

  The whistle blew and Annie took off like a shot, skating in a fury. The idea of Tyler dancing with Dee — or anyone other than Annie herself — was infuriating. She tried to get the image out of her mind.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t shake it.

  She skated faster, determined to catch up with Dee. Dee seemed to sense her approach because she turned around and taunted her with another kissing sound.

  Annie’s anger ignited. She leaned forward and began running on her toe stops around a High Rollers blocker, then glided into some superfast crossovers.

  The speed was exhilarating, and her movements were graceful and swift, but in her anger, she misjudged the turn and lost her balance.

  The world slipped out from under her and she went down hard.

  Her left ankle took the brunt of it, twisting beneath her as she landed on it with all of her weight. A bolt of pain shot from her ankle like lightning.

  Wincing, Annie tried to stand up, but her ankle wasn’t having it.

  With a groan, she crumpled back onto the track.

  The rest of the girls stopped skating and Coach Ritter hurried over. “Give me your foot,” she said gently. “Easy, easy . . .” Gingerly, she removed Annie’s skate.

  “Ouch!” Annie yelped, wincing.

  “Sorry, kiddo.” Coach Ritter, who was also a registered nurse, lightly pressed her fingertips to Annie’s ankle. “Can you move it?”

  Annie attempted to wiggle her left ankle, but pain exploded all the way up her leg. She could see that her skin was already discoloring to an awful purple color, and her ankle was beginning to swell.

  “Is it broken?” Annie asked, her heart sinking.

  “I don’t think so,” said Coach. “It looks more like a very bad sprain. But just to be on the safe side, I think you should have it X-rayed.”

  Annie felt a twinge of panic. “At the hospital?”

  Coach smiled. “No, at the yogurt shop. Free soft serve with every CT scan!”

  In spite of her pain and embarrassment, Annie laughed.

  “Thattagirl,” said Coach. “I’m sure it’s gonna be fine, but better safe than sorry, right?” She began unlacing Annie’s right skate, then turned to the side of the track where Jesse was standing and called over to him. “Jesse, will you call an ambulance, please? And Annie’s dad?”

  Looking concerned, Jesse nodded and whipped out his phone. Then Liz and Lauren skated over to help Annie hobble off the track.

  On her way, she made eye contact with Dee Stroyer.

  Dee didn’t even look sorry for goading her, which was the whole reason Annie had been so careless in the first place.

  Still, it was Annie’s own fault for letting anger cloud her judgment. She was the one who’d been skating like a reckless maniac.

  As her teammates helped her to a bench, Annie’s ankle continued to pound. It felt like it had swollen to ten times its normal size, and it burned as though it were on fire.

  And the worst part was that Annie had no one to blame but herself.

  Correction: the worst part was that she wasn’t going to be able to skate on it for days. Maybe even weeks. Even before the ambulance arrived, that much was obvious.

  Carmen had run to the first-aid kit for a cold pack, and Sharmila had taken off her sweatshirt and bunched it up like a pillow so that Annie could lie back on the hard wooden bench.

  “I sprained my wrist last year,” said Holly. “It’s pretty miserable at first but it’ll calm down in a couple of hours. You’ve just gotta tough it out.”

  A moment later, the paramedics arrived and bundled Annie onto a stretcher.

  The girls — Belles and Rollers alike — all wished her good luck. Dee Stroyer was the only one who said nothing.

  The paramedics carefully transported her to the ambulance. Lauren climbed in after Annie to hold her hand on the way to the hospital. Just before the doors closed, Jesse ran up.

  Annie smiled weakly. “I crashed and burned, Jesse.”

  “Hey, there’s a Savage Garden song called ‘Crash and Burn.’”

  Annie laughed.

  “Glad to see the pain hasn’t affected your sense of humor,” said Jesse with a smile.

  “Did you get ahold of my dad?”

  “Yeah. He’ll meet you at the ER.” He met her eyes and held them. “Take it easy, okay, Annie?” he said softly. “You’re gonna be fine.”

  Annie nodded. Then the doors closed and the siren blared and she was off.

  The ER wasn’t very busy on a weekday afternoon. In the waiting room, Annie and Lauren struck up a conversation with a woman who’d suffered a deep cut in her thumb while slicing onions for a salad. The only other patient was a construction worker who’d fallen off a ladder and had a few minor bumps and bruises.

  An older nurse, who introduced herself as Martha, helped Annie into a wheelchair and pushed her to a curtained partition at the end of the hall. Lauren came along, swinging Annie’s skate bag.

  “Are your folks on their way, hon?” Martha asked, making some notes on a chart in a file folder.

  “My dad is,” Annie replied. “He should be here soon.”

  Minutes later, a cute young doctor entered through the curtain.

  “Hello, there. I’m Dr. Borden.” He cast an eye at Annie’s swollen ankle and frowned. “If I had to guess, I’d say someone got hurt at cheerleading practice. Bad basket toss, perhaps?”

  Annie had no idea what a basket toss was. “No, doctor,” she replied. “I hurt myself in a roller derby scrimmage.”

  Martha looked up from Annie’s file, intrigued. “Roller derby?”

  Lauren nodded. “We’re on a junior team in Liberty Heights.”

  “I didn’t know we had roller derby in the area,” said Martha, smiling. “When I was a little girl, my granddad used to take me to bouts in Chicago. Of course, that was years ago. But, oh, how I loved to watch those ladies skate!”

  Dr. Borden had taken Annie’s foot in his hand and was carefully tipping it this way and that. Annie cringed as another stab of pain sliced through her ankle.

  “Sorry,” said the doctor. “I know it hurts, but can you try to move it? Point your toes toward
the ceiling.”

  Annie bit her lip and, with a great effort, managed to tip her foot upward. It throbbed but at least the movement proved that everything was still connected.

  “That’s good,” said the doctor. “I’m going to send you off to radiology for a quick X-ray, but that’s just me being cautious. I’d bet my stethoscope that it’s just a really nasty sprain.” He nodded to Martha who stepped out to make arrangements.

  Dr. Borden put his hands on his hips and grinned. “Roller derby, huh? My twins love to roller skate — they’re only seven. Maybe they’d be interested some day.”

  “You should bring them to our Halloween bout!” said Annie. She motioned to Lauren to hand her the duffle bag and quickly fished out one of the flyers. “It’s going to be great! We’re wearing costumes and giving out sweets — I mean candy. And the bout itself is going to be pretty exciting. It’s kind of a grudge match.” She handed him the flyer.

  “Thanks. Sounds like a lot of fun.” He folded it neatly and tucked it into the pocket of his white coat, just as Annie’s dad came skidding into the room.

  He looked frantic.

  “Annie!” He crossed the room in two steps and threw his arms around her. “Are you all right?”

  Dr. Borden answered for her. “She’s going to be fine,” he said in a pleasant, confident tone. “I’m sending her for a little photo shoot down in radiology, but I suspect it will confirm what I’ve already told her. Nasty sprain, nothing more.”

  Annie took a deep breath and asked the question that had been worrying her since the minute she fell down in the rink. “When do you think I’ll be able to skate again?”

  “Well, Annie, that’s hard to say,” Dr. Borden said thoughtfully. He frowned and said, “Off the top of my head I’m going to say about three weeks. But a lot will depend on you. If you follow my instructions and don’t push yourself, it could be sooner. If you don’t follow —”

  “Oh, I will!” Annie blurted. “I’ll do whatever you say. I just really want to be able to skate in the Halloween bout, and it’s three weeks from Saturday.”