Chapter 7
After lunch the girls went back to their classroom and tried to pay attention to Mrs. Lionne's arithmetic lesson. Luckily the lesson didn't last long, and soon they were outside for recess. Alice enjoyed playing football, and was pleased to see that the kids at her new school liked it too. They called it something different, though - soccer, she thought one of the boys said. As soon as they got outside Kelly ran over to a huge net bag and pulled out the soccer ball. "Come on, Alice! Let's play!"
Alice started to follow, but stopped when she noticed Jaime hanging back. The other girl looked toward the playground equipment and waved good-bye.
"Oh, come on! She never plays. We'll see her later... come on!"
Jaime waved her on, so Alice shrugged and ran to catch up with Kelly, who was already organizing a team. When Alice was within hearing distance, Kelly quickly introduced the team, "ThisisAmyMattKevinJennyandChristy." She threw the ball down and raced after it to the middle of the field, where Alice recognized Billy and Tim with some other boys. Kevin followed her immediately. Alice only heard part of Kelly's argument with the boys over whose field it was, but she got the impression from the other girls' expressions that the fight was a regular occurrence. Amy and Matt were rolling their eyes, but they quickly caught up with Kelly and Kevin and were soon gesticulating angrily beside them. Jenny and Christy were walking a little more slowly, as if they knew the game wasn't going to start for a while.
"Do we have to do this every time?" Jenny asked Christy. "It's not like we won't all fit on the field."
"Tell that to Billy and Tim," answered Christy.
"What is their deal?" Jenny asked. "I think they like the fighting part more than the playing."
"You think?"
"What's going on?" Alice finally asked.
Jenny grinned and answered first, "Oh, every day we come out and we run to the field, but somehow Billy and Tim and those guys always get there first. It's getting a little old, actually. I don't know why we don't just play on the blacktop."
"Because *they're* on the blacktop." Christy scowled at the third graders jumping rope and playing tag on the asphalt.
Alice glanced at the wild crowd and understood the problem of organizing a game there. "But what's wrong with the field? The guys want it to themselves?"
"Not *all* the guys," said Jenny.
Christy whispered, "Jenny likes Kevin," a little too loudly to Alice.
"I do not!" Jenny exclaimed, smacking Christy's arm. "I was just saying that some of the guys, Matt and Kevin, for example, think that Billy and Tim are pretty stupid. They just like to cause trouble, and then we spend half of recess fighting about whether or not we're going to play."
"It's no fun if they don't play, and they know it," Christy added. "We'd have to play three on three, and Amy only likes to play keeper, so then somebody else has to be a keeper, and then there are only four people actually playing…"
"Keeping is playing!" Jenny argued half-heartedly, her eyes on the field.
Christy rolled her eyes, "Jenny's usually the other keeper. Anyways, if Billy and Tim play, then we can get Matt and Mark to play…"
"I thought Matt was playing already?" Alice pointed to the boy with Amy.
"Oh, no, the other Matt," Christy pointed to a much larger boy standing with Billy and Tim. "Matt P. See? Our Matt is Matt G."
"The one next to Kevin," Jenny helped.
"It's a little confusing at first," said Christy sympathetically. "There are three Matts and two Megans and two Jennys…"
"The other Jenni is different though! She spells her name with an "i"!"
"Yes, Jenny, you're very unique. Anyways, the Megans are best friends, so you won't have any trouble there. There are a lot of Chrises too… if you don't know a guy's name, your best bet is to go with Chris or Matt…"
Alice shook her head to clear it. "So you want to play six on six, but you can only do that if Billy and Tim and Mark and the other Matt play, and Mark and the other Matt only play if Billy and Tim do, so every day you come out and have the same argument about whether or not you're actually going to play?"
"Yeah," answered Jenny, still watching Kevin argue. The girls were lost for a moment watching Kevin and Kelly pointing up and down the field. Alice wondered what Tim was saying when Amy jumped on him. She almost voiced her concern, but they were spared from a more interesting fight when Matt G. pulled her back.
Christy turned from the field of battle after a minute. "It sounds kind of silly when you say it though." She glanced briefly at the soccer field, where things were turning ugly. "You know what? Let's not play today. C'mon Jenny."
"What? Oh, right… let's… let's not," murmured Jenny, allowing herself to be dragged away.
Alice stood for a moment, torn between the excitement of the field, and her curiosity about Christy's new plan. Not really having a violent nature, she joined the retreat.
Alice, Christy and Jenny found Jaime in a sheltered corner of the playground equipment. She'd brought a book out with her and didn't notice them until they'd climbed into the shelter with her.
"Oh! Hi guys. Is the game over?" She carefully pulled a ripped piece of note paper from the back of the book and marked her place.
"It is for us," answered Christy. "How's the book?"
"Oh… it's really good. It's about this young girl in the eighteenth century who's on this huge ship to America from England when-"
"Was that Kevin?" Jenny asked.
"Was what Kevin?" asked Christy.
"That yell… I thought I heard-"
"You know, Jenny, I think maybe it was. Why don't you guys go check it out?" Jaime suggested.
"Nah. They're just fighting again," responded Christy.
"But if someone's hurt-" Alice began.
Jenny looked at Alice quickly. "You think he's hurt?!?"
"I don't know, I-"
"Maybe we should go-"
"Jenny, I'm sure he's fine," said Christy.
"You guys can go… I mean, you don't have to stay here," offered Jaime.
"I really think-" started Jenny, peering out of their hiding place.
"Fine!" said Christy. "Just go! We'll catch up."
"You will?" asked Jenny, skeptically.
"Yes," Alice said, "We'll be right there."
"Ok, then. I just think, I, well… I'll be right back!"
Jenny climbed out and disappeared. Christy rolled her eyes, "You'd think she was his mother."
"I think I did hear something," Jaime said.
"Yeah. You heard Jenny's Kevin Radar go off. She can't stand to be on the same playground with him and not see him."
The girls giggled. "D'you reckon we should go after her?" asked Alice. "I mean I did say that we'd-" She was interrupted by Mrs. Lionne's call for the class to line up. "I suppose we'll catch up later…" They scrambled away from the playground and raced up to the teacher. From her new vantage point at the top of the school yard Alice watched the soccer players, still arguing, straggle back from the field. Christy pointed out Jenny, who was "helping" Kevin gather up the balls the other kids had been using. When Kelly and Tim came within hearing distance Alice realized that they had managed to play a little after all.
"How can you say that?!" Kelly was yelling. "You were so far out of bounds I'm surprised you could see the goal!"
"I was not!" was Tim's brilliant response.
"You're just mad because you know we're going all-state this year, and you'll never make it!" shouted Billy from behind her.
"They're letting midgets in the all-state team this year?" Matt G. asked Amy loudly.
"You'll never be there to see, will you Matt? Even if some miracle happened and you got in, you'd never go. Wouldn't want to leave you girlfriend behind." snarled Billy.
"I'm not anyone's girlfriend," mumbled Amy, stepping a little away from Matt. "And I *am* going all-state," she said a bit louder.
"Looks like Tim's the only one dragging his girlfriend to the competition," Kelly told Billy pointedly.
Luckily Mrs. Lionne hushed the class and began leading them back inside before Billy could overcome his outrage enough to think of a good come-back. After recess they had a resource class. Jaime explained that they used this period differently everyday. "Mondays we have music, Tuesdays we have art, Wednesdays we have P.E., Thursdays we go to the library-"
"That's Jaime's favorite," Kelly whispered. Jaime blushed and clutched the book she'd taken to recess to her chest.
"Shh!" hissed Lauren, who was behind Alice in line. "We're not supposed to talk in the halls!"
"Miss Gayle, I thought we talked about that noise," Mrs. Lionne called over her shoulder before she turned the corner to the music room. Alice, Kelly and Jaime shrugged at Lauren's glare and filed quietly into the classroom. Mrs. Treble, the music teacher, was a dumpy older woman barely a head taller than her fourth-graders. She had a peculiar fondness for little wooden percussion instruments and hard candies. She shared both with her students if they were well-behaved. Most of the class went on their best behavior when it was time for their music lesson. Even Billy Zeigert listened to Mrs. Treble; probably because she always complimented his singing voice.
Mrs. Lionne came back for them at the end of the music lesson and led them all back to her classroom for their last lesson, American History. Jaime, who considered history another long story, answered several of Mrs. Lionne's questions easily. Alice tried to make herself small to avoid being called on since she didn't know much about American History. Mrs. Lionne seemed to understand and relied on Jaime and a few other students for answers. As the lesson was ending Mrs. Lionne wrote their homework on the blackboard. The bell rang as Alice scribbled down the last page numbers. "Bye Alice!" called Jaime and Kelly, lifting their large backpacks and heading for the door. Alice panicked for a moment, but relaxed when she saw Beth waving from the doorway. She hurried out after the other students and joined her cousin. "Hi!" Beth greeted her.
"Hi!" smiled Alice.
"Come on!" called a little boy as he blew past them on his way out of the building.
"Jake! Slow down!" Beth yelled after him. "Or not. So? How did you like it?"
"It was… interesting," Alice answered. "What do we do now?"
"Now we get on the bus!" Beth grinned.