by Steven Gould
Jade blinked. “Lany’s all right, but isn’t Caffeine on the team?”
My stomach clenched. “Caffeine? No thanks!”
Tara shook her head. “Lany and Carita are still on the team, so, if I’m not mistaken, Caffeine is the one who got bumped for academics. She certainly doesn’t have the bad knee. That was Dulcey Cardenas.”
“Oh,” I said. “Won’t that piss her off, though? For me to go on the team?”
Jade tilted her head to one side. “So what’s your point?”
I snorted. “She’s already laying for me. Can’t see how this can make things worse. Will your parents go for it?”
“Probably. They think I spend too much time lying around watching anime. Yours?”
“Don’t know.” I looked over the rail down to the main floor. Joe and Brett were still in line at the counter. “I’ll call and ask.”
I got Mom who, after asking a few questions, said, “Yes, if you want to. If it’s something you’d really enjoy.”
“Yes, please.”
“Right.”
I’d let her sell it to Dad. They tended not to contradict each other so if one of them had already said “yes” it usually meant “yes.” If one of them said “no,” ditto—which was why I’d asked Mom first.
Jade had touched base with her dad while I was on the phone with Mom.
Brett and Joe came back with espresso drinks and Jade said. “Where’s ours?”
Brett blinked. “Yours, uh, yours? I thought you already had some?”
Jade said, “You’re trying to get us to say yes to this insanity? And you didn’t bring us anything?”
Joe held his coffee out and said, deadpan, “You can have my mocha. But I spit in it.”
I couldn’t help myself. I giggled.
Joe said, “So, did you guys decide?”
I could see Jade was set to give him more trash so I quickly said, “Yeah. We’ll do it.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Really? And you think your parents will let you?”
I raised my cell phone. “Permission already acquired. Oh brave new world that has such technology in it. You should know, though, that Caffeine, for some reason, hates my guts. Does that matter to you guys?”
Brett shrugged. “Knew it.” He shrugged again, spreading his hands.
Joe, though, widened his eyes. “Oh. Are you the girl from PE? I pictured someone bigger. You fight a lot? That could get you kicked off the team, too.”
“I don’t fight at all! Caffeine slipped and fell. Didn’t touch her.”
He digested this. “Okay—not a problem for me. She won’t be riding to events with us anyway, but she might show up at practice. She still has her season pass.” He dug in his backpack for a binder from which he removed several sheets of paper. “Permission slips for participation and for transportation, liability waiver, supplementary insurance for both the events and the transportation, and the registration form for a student season pass at Durango. It’s halfway through the season so it will be reduced.”
He was organized, I’ll give him that.
“The van leaves from school for practice at 7:30 AM Saturday. We don’t have a meet this Sunday but there’s one the Sunday after.”
“Do I have to ride in the van?”
“You can’t drive yourself, but your parents can.”
I hadn’t been thinking about driving.
“So with us, there’s four girls on the team now. So, eight boys?”
He looked surprised. “You heard?”
“It’s called math. You said you needed at least a third girls and you were down two.”
“Right. Eight boys. Four girls with you two.”
I almost said, Maybe I won’t get all F’s. Instead I said, “Okay. We’ll be there.”
* * *
Dad didn’t overturn Mom’s permission but it was a close thing.
“You could get killed!”
“I already snowboard, Dad. It’s not like I’m stopping. They’ve got a coach—one of the instructors at Durango. It’s like really intense lessons.”
“It’s a public venue. People will take pictures.”
I stared at him blankly. “Excuse me?”
“Pictures which people put up on their social networks and websites and send to other peoples’ phones!”
I looked at Mom. She closed her eyes and sighed.
“Uh, are they going to steal my soul?” I said.
He blinked. “No, but they could see the pictures.”
There was no pretending I didn’t know who they were. “So? They don’t know I exist, remember? Now if it was your picture, I could understand. Do I really look that much like you?”
I did, sort of. I’ve got his nose but Mom’s coloring and eyes. And his stubbornness. “I’m a sixteen-year-old girl—not a forty-three-year-old man.”
Mom nodded at this and Dad glared at her.
“Dearest,” Mom said. “As sports go, she’ll be covered up more than most, right? We can even watch the meets because we can bundle up all the way to the eyes, covering everything. It’s an outdoor winter sport. They hold it in winter. Where it’s cold.”
Dad’s mouth twitched.
“Besides,” Mom said. “I already said yes.”
He opened his mouth and then closed it, licked his lips, then muttered, “Don’t blame me when she comes home in pieces.”
“You’re the one who started her snowboarding in the first place.”
He showed up two hours later with a new board for me and a bag, one that would hold two boards. That’s totally Dad.
No, you absolutely can not! Well, you’ll need this then.
“I checked out the state league website. They do half-pipe, slopestyle, boardercross, and grand slalom. Your board is pretty good for freestyle, but this one is for racing. I didn’t buy the bindings yet.”
I’d been on the Internet, too. “Right. I’ll need new boots.” Racing uses a stiff boot, like an alpine ski boot, which require different bindings.
Dad nodded. “Thought we could go try boots and bindings.”
I looked at my watch. It was nine at night. “Where?”
He shrugged. “Niseko Village.”
“Hokkaido? What is it, one PM, there?”
“Noon.”
I jumped up and hugged him—surprising him, I think—then pushed him out of the room so I could change.
Niseko Village, on the northernmost island in Japan, is famous for its powder. Dad took me there when I was learning to ride in deep snow, like we get in the Yukon.
Fortunately, they hadn’t had fresh snow lately, since I needed to try out the boots and binding on groomed snow. We got back at midnight, having picked out bindings and boots. Dad took them away with the new board to have them mounted, and I tried to sleep.
My quads and stomach muscles hurt the next morning—not horribly, just the kind of ache a really good workout brings. The thought of snowshoeing, even just the stretch from the woods to the school, was daunting. I jumped all the way to school, to my spot behind the evergreen bushes near art class.
I was early and it was too cold to wait outside, but I spotted Joe Trujeque reading in the library. I plopped the sheaf of filled-out paperwork on the table in front of him.
“Money orders? Can’t they write a check?”
“Our account isn’t local,” I said. “Better you get something that will clear immediately.”
He shrugged. “I’ll see if I can run down George.”
“George?”
“Mr. Hill.”
“The biology teacher?”
Joe nodded. “He’s our sponsor. Not exactly our coach—that’s Ricardo over at Durango. George likes to board, but he’s really more our chaperone.”
I held out my hand. “I’ve got him first period. I can give them to him.”
He handed them back. “I thought you were a sophomore?”
“So?”
“Isn’t that Biology II?”
“So?”
This was as bad as his comment about all F’s.
Some of my irritation must’ve shown on my face because he leaned back and said, “Uh, thanks. If you could take them to him, that would be great.”
“Right.” I left, rather abruptly. Not as abruptly as I could have, though.
Mr. Hill looked mildly surprised when I handed him the paperwork. “Joe said he got somebody, but I didn’t realize it was you. You been boarding long?”
“Since I was nine.”
“Well at least we won’t have to worry about your academics,” he said thoughtfully as he looked over the paperwork. I smiled at his bent head. I was sure he didn’t mean it like Joe had. He knew what my work was like.
* * *
We were eating lunch when I heard Caffeine’s voice over the already loud cafeteria noises—loud, and then louder.
“What? WHAT? WHAT!”
I looked back over my shoulder because it was her voice, but most of the cafeteria was staring, it was that loud.
Caffeine was sitting with Brett’s girlfriend Donna and staring at her, mouth wide open. Her head swiveled and then she was staring across four tables, right at me, and her face twisted so much that I hardly recognized her. She climbed to her feet and she kept climbing, onto the bench, then right onto the top of the table, shrugging off Donna’s arm. Then she leaped, table top to table top, her hands reaching out, her fingers curved like claws.
I pivoted, got my legs over the bench, and stood just as she dove at me.
I jumped a foot to the side and ducked slightly. I felt her clawing hand glance off my shoulder, and she slammed into the table top, skidding across the table, driving like a wedge between Jade and Tara, and knocking them sideways on their bench. Caffeine went arms-first down onto the floor between our table and the next.
Vice Principal McClaren and Coach Taichert, on lunch duty, were there almost immediately, had probably started moving when Caffeine first climbed on the table.
“What’s this about?” said McClaren. She was looking accusingly at me. Coach Taichert helped Caffeine up and then restrained her from climbing back over the table at me.
“Ma’am?”
“You must’ve done something to provoke her!”
“I was just sitting here eating lunch,” I said.
Coach Taichert said, “Janet? I saw the whole thing. Caffeine just went for her. Cent didn’t turn around until Caffeine started shouting.”
McClaren frowned at Coach and he blinked, his face going still. He took a half step back.
Caffeine was breathing heavily, her eyes murderous.
Tara said what I’d been thinking—rather she asked it. “Was it because she heard that Cent joined the snowboard team?”
Coach Taichert’s mouth made an “O” shape.
McClaren looked confused. “Why should that matter? Caffeine’s not on the snowboard team anymore.”
Caffeine hauled off and kicked the bench in front of her. Trays jumped on the table top.
Ms. McClaren gasped and Coach Taichert pulled Caffeine further back from the table. He frowned at Ms. McClaren and said, “Maybe we should move this down to admin?”
“I should think so!” said Ms. McClaren. “Come along, Camelia.”
“It’s Caffeine!” Caffeine said, and pulled back as Coach Taichert tugged her toward the door.
“Take it up with your parents, Camelia. You’ll be talking to them soon enough,” Ms. McClaren said. She pointed at the door.
Caffeine ripped her arm out of Coach Taichert’s grip and stomped toward the door. Donna met her there with her backpack. Caffeine took it without saying a thing. Donna stood there biting her lower lip.
I started to sit back down but Ms. McClaren, trailing Caffeine and Coach Taichert to the door, said, “You, too, Millicent.”
I wanted to snarl at her like Caffeine had. It’s Cent! Instead I schooled my face to stillness. Tara looked at me and raised her eyebrows, then picked up her book bag and walked along with me. Jade trailed behind her.
Out in the hall Ms. McClaren noticed my friends. “I didn’t call you two.”
“Why not?” said Tara. “Caffeine actually hit us.”
“She wasn’t after you,” Ms. McClaren snapped.
“How do you know that?” said Tara. “Jade is also a new member of the snowboarding team.”
Ms. McClaren straightened her spine and narrowed her eyes. “It isn’t a team.”
Tara let out her breath in exasperation. “It’s not an official school team, no, but that’s not the point. Jade is also a new member of the snowboarding club. Why are you taking Cent to the office and not us?”
I held up my hand in front of my stomach and shook it side to side. “Guys, it’s all right. I’m sure Ms. McClaren just wants to know if there is any sort of animosity between me and Caffeine, before she makes any disciplinary decisions.”
Ms. McClaren looked at me, surprised. “Well, yes.” Her eyes narrowed. “Is there?”
“She doesn’t seem to like me,” I said. “It’s been like that from my first day. However, the only thing I’ve ever done is like what I did in the cafeteria.”
“What’s that?” Ms. McClaren asked.
“Move out of her way.” There. That was the exact truth.
Ms. McClaren frowned at me, then glanced back over her shoulder. Coach Taichert and Caffeine had reached the door to the front office.
“All right. I may have questions for you later, Millicent.” She walked off.
I waited until she was definitely out of earshot before I said, “It’s Cent.”
Jade laughed softly.
“Uh, thanks guys. But you didn’t have to.”
“Yes we did,” said Tara. “Dr. Prady is at the Southwest Principals Conference with Dr. Morgan.”
“So?”
“The only time Ms. McClaren handles disciplinary activities is when they’re both is out of town.”
“I must be dense but—”
Jade said, “That’s the only time she’s allowed. Not after the homecoming dance.”
“What happened at the homecoming dance?”
“The lawsuit, uh, right. You weren’t here. The short form is that Ms. McClaren just knows things.”
At my expression, Tara added, “She knows things that have no basis in reality and she dismisses any evidence that happens to disagree with what she knows.”
“She found papers and a half-empty baggie of pot behind the stage curtains and had Leo Neztsosie hauled off by Deputy Tomez, saying he’d put it there.”
“Oh? She saw him?”
Tara shook her head. “Well, she said she did. Later she said she just knew he put it there.”
“Thank god for cell phones,” Jade said. “Monica Munez was getting some video of the dancing, and in the background you could clearly see Shelly Clew put the baggie behind the curtain. I mean, clearly.”
“Monica didn’t even see it. A week later she put the video up on her Facebook page and someone else spotted it.” Tara said. “The school district settled out of court. I don’t know how much, but Leo says his college is paid for.”
“Why did Ms. McClaren think he did it?”
“He was sitting at a table at that end of the room. She also doesn’t like him.”
“Why does Ms. McClaren still have a job?”
“The school board was split on it,” said Tara.
Jade snorted. “Yeah. There was the half that wanted her fired and the half that were members of her church.”
“Be fair,” said Tara. “One of the board members that wanted her fired was also a member of her church.”
Jade said, “Yeah, I guess.” She looked sideways at me. “I couldn’t believe how fast you got out of her way.”
Tara laughed. “Good reflexes! I blinked and missed you moving, but Caffeine’s expression changed from fierce to oh shit as she realized she missed you.”
I smiled weakly. “Just lucky, I guess.”
I hoped everyone in that room thought
they’d blinked.
The bell rang and we went our separate ways.
* * *
By the end of the school day I was sick of people.
It was the incident in the cafeteria. In PE they stared. In humanities they stared. In art they stared. They stopped talking in the halls as I walked by and their voices resumed in hushed tones after I passed.
I hoped it was just the bit with Caffeine jumping across the tables. Or that I was a weirdo because of the way I acted, or dressed, or who I hung out with, or even that I must be one tough girlchild because Caffeine had gone for me more than once without effect.
As long as it wasn’t because I could jump.
Jade and Tara suggested Krakatoa, but the thought of more eyes watching was too much and I begged off.
“Saturday morning, though,” said Jade. “The van to Durango. I swear, you don’t show up and I’ll quit.”
I crossed my heart and then made a straight line across my throat, something I learned from Mom, but they didn’t get it, so I had to say, “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Mom looked surprised when I showed up. She was sitting in the living room and reading some kind of report, her phone sitting beside her on the end table.
“Everything okay?” Then she frowned. “No. It’s not, is it?”
Sometimes I don’t hate that she knows me so well.
I only left out jumping, that time in the shower, and how I got out of Caffeine’s path in the cafeteria.
Oddly enough, Mom seemed more concerned about what I told her about Ms. McClaren than about Caffeine.
“Tell you what—you ever get called into that woman’s office, say you have to go to the bathroom, then come get me or your dad.”
I held up my phone.
She nodded. “Sure, try that first since it would get us anywhere in the county. But if we’re at the cabin you might have to come fetch us.”
Part of me wanted to protest that I could handle the crazy Ms. McClaren but instead I said, “Thanks, Mom. Glad you got my back.”
THIRTEEN
Millie: Old Allies
Millie was listening to an argument about anthropogenic climate change at an international relief conference in Washington DC. The meeting was being held at the Ronald Reagan Building, convenient to the U.S. Agency for International Development. It was one of many different meetings happening there; she’d almost walked into a symposium on computer forensics in law enforcement just down the hall.
