By: CNJ
PG-13
15: Countdown To Graduation, Part 5
Kristy:
Thank the stars Stacey let
us all stay at her place. I woke up with a killer hangover in the morning,
but by the afternoon, it was better. Stacey's mom let us sleep it off for
most of the morning. Vaguely, I remembered throwing up last night and Mary
Anne holding my hand.
"How're you feeling?" Mary
Anne asked when I came into the kitchen.
"Better," I told her, sitting
down. My stomach still felt a little gritty and oily, but it had mostly
settled. Slowly, David, Claudia and Stacey came in. We ate what we could.
Actually, Claudia's appetite was good for someone with a hangover, she
wore huge sunglasses and said she had a headache, but apparently her stomach
was fine, because she wolfed down a frozen pizza bagel and chips.
"Ohhh..." I had to groan.
All's I could manage was a ginger ale and crackers. Normally, I love pizza,
but the sight of that greasy sauce reminded me of my stomach. I guess David's
stomach still felt the same way because he avoided looking at the pizza.
"So, Kris, ready for the
last baseball game of the season tomorrow night against Burkeview?" Claud
asked, finishing off her pizza. The game! That's right.
"I should be," I nodded.
Thanks the stars my headache was mostly a dull ache now. "We'll all be
there," Stacey put in.
"Thanks. Abby and I are
going to miss playing for SHS."
"And don't forget, the awards
ceremony is on Wednesday night," Claudia put in.
"And I've been working on
my speech," Stacey put in. We talked a while more, then when I started
home, the sunlight seemed so bright that and I had to hunt around for sunglasses
and put them on.
"God, everything turns FLORESCENT
when you've been drunk," I moaned. I hoped my sight would be back to normal
by tomorrow night's game.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Abby:
It was hard to believe that
Kristy and I were about to play our last baseball game of the season. And
it was against our biggest rival, Burkeview. I fished my glove out from
under the bed, then changed into my uniform and bunched my thick dark curls
back into a ponytail. I was psyched about heading to New Jersey with my
twin sister Anna for college in the fall, but deep down knew that I'd miss
Stoneybrook. Oh, well, I knew Anna and I would be back to visit Mom as
well as our other BSC friends. Less than a week away is the big night for
us. The whole BSC was planning to try to sit together at the awards ceremony.
"Ready, girls?" Mom called
from downstairs.
"Yup," I called and booked
downstairs. Anne walked behind me more slowly. Funny how we look alike,
yet Anna is much quieter than me. She's more like Mary Anne and Mona. The
three of them formed a music band, Unconventional Sounds in the fall of
eleventh grade and played in several school productions.
"I'm really going to miss
our Unconventional Sounds," Anna sighed on the way there.
"I'm sure going to miss
the soccer team," I added. "I just hope they have women's teams at Dexter
U."
"Maybe I can join or form
another band at Trenton Music Academy. I hope Mary Anne and Mona are able
to keep up their music at Staten next year. They're great. Hey, we got
started in a way because of you."
"Me?" I laughed a little.
I'm no way into music, but my sister really is and it was her idea for
the band, even the name. "How did I help get you all started?"
"Operation Today's Good
Youth," Anna said simply. "You got the ball rolling and that gave a lot
of kids more courage to win SHS back from the IN clique so they couldn't
dominate the school anymore and it gave us three the courage to start the
band."
"Wow, thanks," I reached
over and squeezed her hand. I remember vividly that September day back
when we were juniors. It was the annual career day and a local news reporter,
Renee Vassar was one of the sponsors and several of us BSC gotten a section
with her in News Media. We'd brainstormed for suggestions on how to improve
the media and make it more accurate and I'd suggested that the media needed
to improve the way today's teenagers were portrayed. It seemed like I'd
seen too many negative reports on how supposedly awful "today's" kids were
and a lot of the blame was being put on working and single moms. My mom,
who's widowed and works hard had been especially on my mind that morning.
That sparked a classwide discussion and I was relieved to see that other
kids felt the same way. Never did I suspect it would turn into a schoolwide
movement, but it did! All us (kids not in the IN clique) had written to
editors all over the northeast about how the media could improve its image
of our generation and offered plenty of proof, which I see all the time
about how today's kids are just as responsible, moral, and caring as kids
before us. That weakened the IN clique as more kids felt empowered to stand
up to them and practically revolutionized SHS. Several high schools had
gotten involved and early in December, reporters came and took our picture.
I'll never forget that day when it was snowing and most of the school was
standing outside all excited. By then, Unconventional Sounds had formed
and had been practicing for its part in that year's holiday production,
which Claudia and I also had a part.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kristy:
I was happy my stepsibs and
parents came to the game. So had my other BSC friends. I was also feeling
a lot better; my stomach had cooled down and was almost normal. We got
a fast start and as I ran around the bases with two other teammates to
hit a homerun, I glanced up at the bleachers and noticed that my friends
were sitting in the same spot in the bleachers where last year's shoving
incident happened. I scored the homerun, then as the game took a break
for halftime, I noticed Abby looking up at the bleachers in that area too.
We waved to our friends and they waved back. By then, it was starting to
get dark.
"Kristy..." Abby sat next
to me. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"About last year's incident
in that last game of last season?" I nodded. "Yeah."
"That was scary," Abby remembered.
"Thanks the stars Ms. Silverbein
had the courage to keep anyone from getting seriously hurt," I put in.
"I think that was how the
IN clique finally did themselves in," Abby sipped her Gatorade. "And the
BIG clique that used to rule Burkeview."
"Yeah." I remembered how
when that game had been over, none of us really knows who started shoving
first from those two cliques, but I think they started with each other,
then other kids got pushed and it spread all over that section of the bleachers
until it was dangerously close to an actual brawl breaking out. Abby and
I had been heading into the locker room to change when we saw some of our
friends being pushed and rushed up to their aid. Ms. Silverbein, several
teachers and the principal of Burkeview had rounded up the troublemakers,
thank the stars and Ms. Silverbein suspended the IN-cliquers who had caused
the trouble for two weeks, then banned them from all sports this year.
They all ended up blaming each other and broke up for good. I'd heard that
the BIG crowd at Burkeview got yelled at by their principal and also kicked
off the teams and broke up. Those now-rebuilt bleachers that my friends
were now standing on had been damaged and a lot of kids in both SHS and
Burkeview had been shaken up.
"I wonder how the Five R
Us is doing," Abby said, referring to a group of girls from Burkeview who
were a group of friends like us. "And if any of them are here tonight."
We'd been next to each other in the shoving incident and they too had been
upset like us. One of the Five R Us girls, Liza, had been punched and laughed
at by a couple from the BIG clique and was really upset and crying hard.
Mary Anne, who'd also been shoved by that same couple, had hugged her and
started crying too. I'd also been shoved by them. Liza had told us that
she used to be friends with the girl, but in tenth grade, they had drifted
apart. Wow, I'd thought at the time.
"Me too," I added. "They
seemed to getting on with college plans like us. Remember when we met Katie
in our Washington DC trip that she told us she was heading to Georgetown
next year?"
"Hope we see them again,"
I said. "Around the galaxy." We both laughed then and the umpire called
the halftime over and we got back into the game. Close to the end, we were
neck-in-neck and I saw one girl from Burkeview standing at bat. I noticed
at she had a slight jerkiness to her movements and I wondered if the had
juvenile rheumatoid arthritis or epilepsy. I hoped she wouldn't have a
seizure mid-run and get hurt or something. She hit the ball well, but her
running was slow and awkward. She was tagged very close to the second base
and some kids were calling for an out, but something inside me wanted to
see her hit a homer, so I bellowed, "Run...go...go! Keep going, you're
not out!" She seemed bewildered a minute, then Abby joined in, then other
team members both from Burkeview and Stoneybrook Highs cheered her
on. I guess she got it because she slowly ran on to third base and as she
hesitantly headed for home, the crowd in the bleachers joined in the cheering,
"Go...GO...RUN...GO...GO!" The sound grew deafening. She made it just as
the game ended! She'd hit a home run! All us from both teams whooped and
hugged. Abby burst into tears and hugged me. That got me started and we
clung to each other and alternated between laughing and crying. "That was
phenomenal!" Caitlin Giotti came up and hugged us both, HER face streaked
with tears. A lot of members of both teams were crying and I saw several
Burkeview students lift the girl up and carry her around.
"Yeee-HAAAH!" Abby yipped
and we crowded into the circle.
"Girl power!" someone else
crowed. It's hard to describe the feeling here, but it made the hall of
fame for sportspersonship as well as girlpower. Technically, pointwise,
Burkeview beat us, but thanks to all us supporting one disabled fellow
player, everyone won tonight! Looking up into the bleachers, I could see
that my BSC friends were in tears too. I looked over toward my parents
and saw that tears were streaking down my mom's face as well and she blew
me a kiss. Way to go, Kris! I could see her mouth. I blew
a kiss back at her. Looking around more, I did see the Five R Us near the
top of the bleachers on the other side and saw them wiping their
eyes. I waved at them, wondering if they remembered me. I guess they did
because they waved back. Katie put two fingers in a circle and whistled.
Abby did her two-finger whistle back and waved. What a game! This was better
than all our wins put together. We all stood close for a while after the
game, some kids still crying. Abby said softly, "I think this healed what
happened last year."
"Yeah," I realized that
she was right. Despite the fact that our two teams were from rival schools,
everyone tonight seemed to bond into one team, which helped heal the fear
and emotional scars from last year's incident for both Stoneybrook and
Burkeview Highs.