I.
The teenager looked from behind her black bangs sweeping over the opposite side of her face, all eyes weren't so much on this newcomer as they were on the girl sizing her up like a deadly hawk from the center of the baseball field. Darcel Lain Mitchell held the bat over her head and tried not to watch as the umpire gave the pitcher signals. Overhead the sun was beating hot in the mid-summer sky and the glare was making it hard for her to focus.
"Ready, Mitchell?" One of the other girls called out from left field.
When Darcel turned her head the ball whizzed straight at her. Yipping, she ducked just as it flew over her. The girl flushed bright red as laughter started to rise from all sides of the diamond, but she adjusted her hat so that the brim was fully back and geared for the next swing. Angelina called out if she wanted to stop and Darcel's response was to bend down in a crouch. Mercilessly, the redhead nodded at the umpire and hurled a tight curve ball at her. Darcel gave a shriek before running out towards the left side of the pitcher's mound.
"Darcy!" Her friend - a round girl with brown hair - yelled in exasperation.
Panting, the thirteen-year-old dragged legs to a stop and fell to her knees.
She took the next few seconds to gather her breath as some hushed talk went on.
"Hey, Darc." Angelina came up to her, trying but failing to sound sincere. "The girls and I just talked, and we think it would be best if you left." Darcel switched her eyes on her and stood. "Face it, Darsmell, you suck. Why don't you go back to whatever you did before."
"I wanna do softball." the girl said evenly, going back to pick up her bat and carry it to the base. But she found that when she tried for her third bat that the girls weren't responding.
"Didn't you hear us?" Angelina now spoke loudly and scathingly. "We don't want you on our team. You suck, we don't." she stomped forward, grabbed the bat from the tense girl and held the round end out under Darcel's nose. "The hat, Mitchell." Darcel didn't move.
Her brown eyes were set in defiance.
"The hat."
Slowly, Darcel removed her customized pink cap that read Cheaters n' Cheetahs in purple.
"Fine," she mumbled, slapping the accessory on the bat. "Softball sucks anyway."
"Darc." The friend whose name she had forgotten jogged up to her. "It's not your fault."
"Then why won't you guys let me play?"
"Well… because, you just need to go back to what you were good at before."
'But your school doesn't have a track team.'
Darcel's thoughts shifted as she looked up in the bleachers, parents watched their young softball players practicing before they would go out to greet them, board them up in their cars and take them out for McDonalds or Pizza hut. "Never mined." Darcel walked away.
Her new house had a room waiting to be unpacked.
To be continued…
~ Lavenderpaw ~
