been friends for years. “Nope, no cheerleaders here at LECS. We’re all too serious for such things,” she says, turning her face into a mock frown.
All right, so after two years in high school, there are some things you can tell right away. She has a pack; that I already saw. She’s into soccer players. LECS is too small for a football team, so the soccer jocks rule the school here. Socially, this place will be a breeze as long as I stick by the girl with the following.
While we walk to the classroom, she tells me that LECS is a small Montessori school. Only 120 people, divided into four classes, all multi-age settings. Instead of group learning, individual lessons are taught by subject teachers who go from classroom to classroom, student to student.
“Weird, but cool,” she says.
She’s right. The classroom is weird. It’s more like someone’s house: there’s a kitchen on one side where a girl is at the stove, grilling toast, while a younger guy washes some dishes. Against the far wall is a workshop with hammers, a table saw, a bucksaw, and rows of other equipment. Through an arch, I can see another room with only two computers.
Caitlyn tells me that this is the way you work here—independently. No blackboard or pre-ordained desks. I could drop and kiss the floor. No more lectures, no more passing notes and getting busted, no more “Back to reality, Mr. Witherspoon.”
When the teacher, Mr. Ortiz, asks her to introduce me, she takes me around, her hand on my triceps, taking possession. But the kids all blur together. I notice only that there is no Dakota in this classroom, and I notice Eric, who says, “Didn’t I see you shooting a soccer ball at the fields here last Sunday?”
“Yep.”
I look him over. His jeans strain across his thighs (only soccer players and maybe gymnasts have this problem, buying jeans wide enough to accommodate our quads), his hair is cut clean and simple, and I can just picture him on the field. He’d be decent.
“You play?” I ask.
His mouth twists, and he crosses his arms. “I’m the captain.”
Okay, then. Captain. Don’t get into a pissing war with me. I don’t want to brag, but I will if I have to .
“Where’d you used to play?” he says, pressing me. When I tell him, he says, “Are they good?”
I remember my bastard-no-longer pledge and don’t tell him that we took third in State for the last three years, that I was bumped into first-string varsity this year, and that my nickname on the team is “Bullet.” Better than you, you piss-ass, pathetic wuss . I just nod.
“You gonna try out?” he asks.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
After school the LECS coach, Coach Davis, is standing on the fields. He doubles as the history teacher. Or rather, he’s the history teacher who doubles as a soccer-coach-wannabe, judging from the team’s 0–2 record.
“My varsity team is pretty tight right now. And we’re looking for a leader on the JV team, so let’s just see what you can do, okay?” he says.
“Okay, sir.”
Cardinal rule of sports: don’t piss off the coach. Not unless you like running extra laps and sitting on a cold bench.
He smiles at the “sir” and says, “It’s not the army. We’re here to have fun, remember?”
To have fun? No. To complete, to battle, to win. Got it? Sir .
“Okay,” I say.
He claps me on the back. “What are you waiting for, son?”
What kid has ever liked to be called “son”? I bite back my sarcastic remark and take off running. The team rounds the corner of the track. I sprint to catch up, and by the second length, that elephant is already resuming his comfy seat on my chest. Cannot, will not stop breathing.
After drills, we split into two teams, and he puts me in my usual spot, right forward.
The right midfielder, whose name I don’t remember, passes to me—or it’s supposed to be to me—but it hops to the sweeper. He cocks his leg. I turn on the speed, pull the ball from under his foot, and
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