by Kieran Scott
“I don’t think I like where this is going,” Terrell said quietly, earning a laugh from his male counterparts. Tara clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes.
“So how about we have a craft party this weekend?” Jaimee suggested, earning a guffaw from Terrell. Her cheeks turned pink, but she soldiered on. “We can do it at my house on Saturday night. I’m sure my parents won’t mind.”
Rincon snorted a laugh. You could have knocked everyone over with a feather. Coach Holmes shot him a look of death and he quickly covered his mouth with his hand and tried to adopt a serious expression. Unfortunately, however, the damage was done.
“What?” Jaimee said uneasily.
“Nothing. That sounds like a perfect idea,” Coach Holmes said, forcing a smile. “Thank you, Jaimee.”
“Uh, a craft party? No, thanks,” Terrell said, lifting his foot to rest on his knee.
“I don’t do crafts,” Joe added.
“You do now,” Tara said flatly.
Daniel tipped his head back and groaned. Apparently the idea of a night of glue and glitter didn’t please him either.
“Come on, you guys, don’t think of it as a craft party,” I said, turning in my seat so I could see the boys better. “We’ll get junk food, we’ll hang out, we’ll—”
“Cut out letters and crabs and little basketballs,” Steven finished, none too enthused.
Suddenly everyone was arguing again. Just like that, the boys vs. girls line had been redrawn. Coach Holmes finally had to blow her whistle to get us to shut up.
“Listen up! Decorating for rivalry games is a big part of being on this squad,” Coach Holmes said. “You all will be there and you all will—”
“Come on, Dee. You’re really gonna make them craft?” Coach Rincon said.
An anvil dropped out of the sky and flattened his head. Or it might as well have. Ever so slowly, Coach Holmes turned to face Coach Rincon. The vein must’ve been visible from space.
“Coach Rincon? Will you excuse me while I run my team?” she said through her teeth.
His arms dropped to his sides and his nostrils flared as he stared at her. “Your team,” he said.
“Yes. My team,” she replied.
“All right then. I think I’ll just go get some water,” he replied. “Why don’t you come and get me when you’re ready.”
“Thanks, I think I will,” Coach Holmes said.
Rincon shook his head with a wry smile, turned and sauntered out. Huh. Was this a trouble-in-paradise moment?
“Man’s right,” Terrell said as soon as Rincon was gone, agreeing with the guy for the first time ever. “The guys shouldn’t have to go participate. We’d probably suck at it anyway.”
Coach Holmes rolled her eyes to the ceiling and shook her head, at a loss for words. None of us had ever seen her at a loss for words before and my heart went out to her. It had to have something to do with the snipes between her and Rincon. It was amazing how spying one intimate moment changed the interpretation of everything.
“You’re going to be there,” Tara said.
“No. We’re—”
“Hey! You guys are gonna be there, and you’re gonna like it!” Tara said, standing and turning on them.
Terrell looked up at her slowly and for a split second, I thought they were going to finally throw down. Tara’s eyes narrowed further and further as Terrell’s nostrils flared. I imagined them flying up into the air and then grabbing each other’s necks, Matrix style.
Now that was a fight I’d like to see. The PG version, of course. My money would be on Tara. Terrell was strong, but Tara was vicious. She’d scratch his eyes right out of his head if provoked.
“Fine,” Daniel said finally, glancing warily in Coach Holmes’ direction. “We’ll be there.”
“Gee. I can’t wait,” Terrell said sarcastically. “Can we practice now? Sage and I have a cupie to perfect.”
The cupie, a stunt in which the flyer stands with both feet on her base’s hand, was the hardest stunt we had learned yet. And none of us had mastered it. Terrell really knew how to change a subject. He was aware that Coach Holmes was dying to show our cupies off at the West Wind game.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Coach said, and blew her whistle. “Hit the mats!”
Terrell grinned triumphantly and jumped to the gym floor. Once more the cheer crisis of the century was averted.
Coach Rincon did come back and he did help all of us perfect our cupies, but there was clearly tension in the air between him and Coach Holmes. Finally, on one of our take-fives, they walked out of the gym together and up the stairs to the athletic department offices. We all watched them go with badly disguised interest.
“What do you think they’re doing up there?” Autumn asked as we walked ever so slowly toward the water fountain.
“I think Coach is tearing him a new one,” Phoebe said.
“You know, your imagery has gotten really violent lately,” Autumn told her. “Is everything okay?”
“Never better,” Phoebe said flatly, then turned and shoved her way through the doors.
“College applications,” Tara explained to the rest of us. “You’ll understand when you’re seniors.”
I had a feeling that it was also Phoebe’s parents’ divorce, her part-time job and keeping up with school, cheerleading and stunting that was getting to her. Every day it seemed like the girl was one step closer to snapping.
“Let’s go listen in,” Sage suggested, looking hungrily at the door to the office.
“No! You can’t do that,” I said, even though I was practically salivating to know what was going on.
“Yes, I can,” Sage said with a mischievous grin. “And you’re going with me.”
She grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the door that led to the offices. I couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d pulled me by the hair.
“Why me?” I asked, yanking my arm away.
“Because! She loves you,” Sage said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “If she catches us, she’ll go easy on us. If she caught me alone, she’d kill me.”
There was Sage logic for you. But I let her drag me along with only one helpless glance over my shoulder at Daniel and the rest of my teammates. They looked understandably baffled. After all, since when did Sage and I do anything together other than fight? But I was too intrigued to turn back. I’m not proud of it, but I was. Some dirt is just too juicy.
Ew.
Clutching hands—spying brings people together, apparently—Sage and I tiptoed up the steps and around the corner. Coach Holmes’ office was the second door on the left, and she had left it slightly ajar. Already, the two of them were yelling at each other. Sage and I ducked back around the corner and huddled there, listening.
“—you call me Dee in front of my squad?”
“I’m sorry, but what’s with all this ‘my squad, my squad’?” Coach Rincon retorted. “I thought I was a coach here too.”
“Yeah, a guest coach,” she replied. “What were you thinking, contradicting me in front of the team?”
“I’m sorry for that, okay? But Deirdre, come on. Making the guys do signs and banners and stuff? That’s torture,” he said.
“You’re overstating the situation a bit, aren’t you, Leo?” she replied. “I’m not suggesting we electrocute them or something. Besides, this is part of what this team does.”
“Well, it’s just stupid,” he replied.
Sage and I looked at each other, wide-eyed. Had he never seen Coach Holmes go nuclear? ’Cause he was about to.
“You’re telling me that if we had to make banners back at school, you wouldn’t have participated?” she said. “Mr. Team Team Team would have, what, quit?”
“No. I don’t know,” he said, clearly frustrated. “I guess it’s a good thing we never had to find out.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” she said.
“Look, I just don’t think it’s fair, that’s all,” Rincon said.
“Real nice, Dee,” Rincon spat back. “Is this what our marriage is gonna be like too?”
Sage bleated in surprise and we both slapped our hands over our mouths. Then we both turned and tore down the stairs, shoving each other all the way to try to get ahead of each other. Just before the door slammed behind us, I heard the two coaches were still shouting. Apparently, they hadn’t heard us. Though how that was possible, I had no idea.
“They’re getting married?” Sage cried the moment we hit the floor of the now deserted gym.
“They’re getting married,” I repeated, dumbstruck.
“Omigod, I have to tell everyone,” Sage said.
“Not if I tell them first!” I shouted. And once again, the race was on.
10
“Felice, could you pass me the glitter glue?” Daniel asked, holding his hand out over the crafting table in Jaimee’s rec room on Saturday night. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him. Daniel blanched. “Did I just say pass me the glitter glue?” he said. “Oh, God.”
“I think you just officially became a girl,” Tara joked, looking at him over an elaborate blue crab she was cutting out of poster board.
“Yeah. Good thing your brother wasn’t here to hear you say that,” Terrell called from across the room. “He’d be calling an exorcist right about now.”
Felice tossed him the glue from the other end of the table. Daniel caught it in one hand and placed it down on the newspaper that protected the wood surface of the furniture, looking nauseated. Outside, the waves of the ocean crashed. Jaimee’s family was apparently seriously loaded. Three of the four walls of her house looked out over the ocean and the whole place was floor-to-ceiling windows. Even the rec room on the bottom floor had a gorgeous view, considering it was reserved for her brother’s playdates, her grandmother’s senior club gatherings and Jaimee’s craft nights.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I said, patting him on the back. “No one’s revoking your man status.” I lowered my voice and glanced across the room, where Terrell and Joe were playing on Jaimee’s brother’s Xbox 360, screaming and yelling at the big-screen TV as they decimated some desert enemy. “Real men work with their team instead of ignoring our existence all night long.”
“Girl has a point,” Chandra said, gluing a yellow SDH megaphone down on a white background. “Besides, there’s nothing sexier than a guy who knows how to use glitter glue. Right, Annisa?”
“Oh, totally.”
Daniel looked down at the yellow star he had cut out, which he was about to outline with the glitter glue. He placed the star in front of me and pulled a piece of orange paper toward him.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll just cut out the circles for the basketballs for now,” he said with a wan smile.
Chandra and I laughed. “Good plan.”
I smiled to myself as I got back to cutting and decorating stars. So far craft night had been fairly successful. Shira, Wendy and Ally, the new team members, had been in charge of snacks and had gone all-out, bringing everything from a veggie-and-dip platter to boxes of Twinkies and Oreos. All the girls were sitting at the various card tables Jaimee’s grandmother had collected for the train dominoes game she hosted each week, making decorations for the seniors’ lockers. Upstairs, Kimberly, Autumn, Maureen and Michelle baked cookies and brownies to be boxed up and stashed in the lockers as well. And even though Terrell and Joe had done nothing but play video games since they had arrived, at least Daniel was helping. As was Steven, who was laid out on the floor with Jaimee, painting a banner for the front lobby.
“This is gonna be the best banner ever,” Jaimee said, admiring her design with pride. The slogan read “Snag the Dolphins” and at the end was a drawing of a mean-looking crab holding a dolphin up in its pincers over its head.
“You are an artiste,” Steven said as he filled in one of the letters with blue paint.
Jaimee beamed with pride. There wasn’t much she loved more than craft parties. Unless it was getting complimented on her hard work.
Lindsey walked by in her high-heeled boots, stepping carefully around the banner as she balanced two cups of soda. Her curly blonde hair was pulled back from her face with tendrils grazing her cheeks and she was wearing super-tight jeans and a cleavage-baring top, while the rest of us had rolled in wearing sweats and T-shirts.
“Hey, Lindsey! What do you think of my sign?” Jaimee asked.
Lindsey barely glanced at it. “It’s great,” she said blithely. Then she placed one of the soda cups in front of Joe and stepped up next to the TV, jutting her hip into his line of vision.
“I got you a soda,” she said hopefully. “If you want to pause it.”
“I don’t do breaks,” Joe said.
Karianna, who was sitting on the couch next to Joe—well, practically in Joe’s lap—smirked. Lindsey’s expression darkened, but she wasn’t about to give up. “Who’s winning?” she asked.
“Joe is,” Karianna said, hooking her arm around Joe’s on the couch and looking at him like he was the love of her life.
“Please! Terrell is kicking his ass,” Sage said. She was perched on the arm of the couch right next to Terrell, her butt practically up in his face.
Did I say the girls were all helping with the crafts? I lied. Certain girls had no interest in helping anyone but themselves.
“So annoying,” Phoebe said under her breath as she finished cutting out the last of her letters. She looked over her shoulder as Sage cheered some victory of Terrell’s. “We’re doing all this work and on Monday they’re gonna get just as much credit as we are for being here.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Tara said.
I felt a quick thump of foreboding. “You’re going to tell on them?”
“Why not? Phoebe’s right. They shouldn’t be able to take credit for our work,” Tara said.
“I thought there was no I in team,” Daniel said.
Over in the corner, all five of the video-gamers cheered and high-fived. Joe pulled Karianna onto his lap and Lindsey wrapped her arms around his neck from behind. Pretty soon they were all engaged in a wrestling/tickle match, arms and legs flailing everywhere. Shrieks of delight filled the room and probably brought some confused dolphins to shore outside.
“Yeah,” Tara said, rolling her eyes. “Tell that to them.”
“Well, maybe you should pick your battles,” I suggested. “Coach Holmes is already pretty upset about this whole boys-and-craft-night thing.”
“True,” Chandra said. “I still can’t believe Holmes and Rincon are getting married.”
“If they’re still getting married,” Tara said under her breath.
“Come on, they’re not gonna break up over one little fight,” Jaimee said from the floor.
“Over a high-school cheerleading squad,” Steven put in.
“I don’t know, you guys,” I said. “It sounded deeper than that.”
“Well, it’s not my responsibility to keep Holmes’ engagement together,” Tara said blithely. “But it is my responsibility to run this squad.”
