Shy
Chapter 7: The Look
"You comin' to the Berg with us this Sunday, Ra?" Petey asked.
Rose blinked. "The Berg? Why?"
"Julius, Gerry, Blue, and some of the other guys are goin' to play basketball there this Sunday afternoon. You in?"
"I'm not a basketball player, no matter my height. I don't understand the game at all. I don't know how to play," Rose responded truthfully.
"Aw girl, you don' have to play if you don' want to. You can come watch! Cheer on the big Blue man," Blue boasted.
"C'mon Rose, it'll be fun. I'll come pick you up around 3:30," Gerry coaxed.
"Yeah, not every day someone comes to watch and cheer," Julius mentioned.
"Yeah, we never get a pretty girl to come an' watch us!" Petey crowed.
Rose had blushed at the compliment. "Alright, alright. I've been convinced." She threw up her hands in mock defeat. The boys all cheered.
Rose smiled at the memory and glanced at the kitchen phone. It was 4:45 Sunday afternoon, and Gerry was late. 'I don't think that "around 3:30" means an hour later… I wonder what happened?' Just after finishing her thought the phone rang. Rose reached for it. "Hello, Dawson's residence, Rose speaking."
"Hey cous, its Gerry. I know I'm late, and I'm sorry. Mom won't let me go. She wants me to go to church with her."
Rose heard the annoyance in her cousin's voice. "She doesn't want you hanging out with Julius and the rest of them, is that really it?"
"Yeah," he answered with a sigh. "Not like it's going to change the entire situation. She'll get used to it eventually. She has to; it's not going to go away. Well, I'll see you at school tomorrow."
"Ok, see you." Rose hung up the phone and was reminded of her own mother.
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Last week Friday's game had been washed out by the rain, so it was moved to the next Monday. Rose sat in the bleachers, watching the Titans play without heart. She knew little of the game, but she knew enough about sports and cooperation to know that the boys weren't meshing as well as they had their first game. The other team, the Herndon Hornets, played with even less heart than the Titans did. "Come on you guys! Pick it up!" Rose yelled. 'Pull it together, you can do it!' She saw Julius confront Gerry, and Gerry's stiff reaction. 'Probably has his mother's action on his mind.' The Titans won the game, but Rose knew that tempers were high within the friendships.
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Mr. Dawson dropped Rose off at school early Tuesday morning because he had a meeting to get to at work. Her early arrival was the only reason she saw the gaggle of girls standing on the landing at the large window that faced the back lawn. Rose saw Linda and Gina among them.
"Oh, he's so cute."
"He's in my third period class."
She shrugged it off and proceeded to walk up the stairs past to her locker until she heard Petey's voice.
"What y'all staring at old Sunshine for? I'm the one dominating on the field. He ain't played a minute all year."
'Silly charmer, always the flirt.' Rose stopped a few feet from the stairwell to listen.
"Who cares about the field?" one of the girls replied as the crowd began to walk up the stairs.
'Typical girl response. They don't care how good of an athlete a player is, just what he looks like.' Rose rolled her eyes.
"Well, I don't want to be the one to break your heart, but Sunshine's from California," Petey began to explain why the boy in question was unworthy of the girls' attentions.
'Probably to get their attention on him, no doubt.'
"Yeah, a Californian dream boat," a girl cooed.
"No. Sunshine is from Cali-forn-ia."
'What does his origin have to do with it?'
"He's a Californian – " Petey began before a stocky, dark-haired boy grabbed his arm at the top of the stairs.
"You talking to my girl?" he asked as a handful of other boys gathered around.
'Uh oh Petey, what have you gotten yourself into?'
"I don't see any livestock around here, so I don't know what you talkin' 'bout," Petey answered, witty as ever. The boys pushed him across the hallway and against a set of lockers. "Oooh," Petey let out as he found his face against cold steel.
'Petey!' Rose took a step forward, knowing full well she wouldn't be of any help.
"It's a fight!" a boy announced.
"Guys, stop it!" One girl pleaded.
A few black boys came from behind Rose to help Petey.
"Get off me, get off me!"
"Hey!" someone yelled.
"You want some?" Petey said defiantly.
Rose stood rooted to the ground, eyes wide.
Gerry came to Petey's aid from the other side of the stairwell. "Break it up, break it up!"
"Get your hands off me man!"
Some of the black boys pushed at Gerry and Julius came to his rescue.
"Get your hands off me!"
A girl screamed.
"Petey, get these girls out of here," Julius directed.
"Get out of here," Petey, having gotten free, herded the girls back and a few other students on their way.
"Uncle Tom traitor!" one of the black boys spat.
"Uncle Tom!" another echoed.
Julius backed away. "I know you didn't call me no Uncle Tom. Y'all better back off me now, man. Go! Move!"
The boys dispersed. The stocky boy who had started it all paused by Gerry, no doubt insulting him. He and his friends left. "Oh, big smart guy, huh?" Gerry called after him.
The two athletes met in the middle of the hallway as Rose rushed to them. Gerry had a bloody nose and half of his shirt was no longer tucked in. Petey came from around the corner.
"Are you guys ok?" Rose questioned. Besides Gerry's bloody nose, they looked fine. She dug in her backpack for a Kleenex and handed it to Gerry.
"Yeah, we alright," Julius answered heavily.
"Gerry, you goin' to be alright with that bleeding?" Petey asked.
"Yeah, I'll be fine."
The warning bell rang.
"We best all be off before we late for class, don't need no more trouble," Julius advised.
Rose nodded with everyone else and hurried to her locker, grabbed her books, then back down the stairs to get to lit class on time. She noticed the blonde-haired boy that the girls had been looking at. He was picking up his books in preparation for his first class. He glanced up at the same moment that Rose paused to see what all the girls' excitement had been about. Pale green eyes met brown for a split second; Rose broke away to rush to her class, as did the boy.
Having barely made it to her lit class before the tardy bell rang, Rose pondered where she'd seen the boy before. He did look oddly familiar. Feeling inspired by the boy, she pulled out her writing notebook and jotted down a few plot ideas for the assignment given last week. It took Rose the rest of the hour to remember the boy: he had been the one who'd gone back into the boys' locker room after the first football game.
Rose went over the picture of him in her mind. 'What do the girls see in him? The only thing I can see really different about him is his hair, it's longer than most guys' hair. It is kind of a neat look on him though. Whatever they do see in him… I guess I might have to agree. He is kind of cute, I guess… –'
The bell broke into her thoughts and she hurriedly packed her bag up and went off to her Spanish class, pulling at her memory to remember what Gerry and Petey had called him…
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Dialogue taken from the movie, not my own.
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