Chapter Three - Archery

"ARCHERY?" Sally exclaimed. "You want us to do ARCHERY?"

"Oh come on, Sal!" Tina cried. "It will be fun, just watch. Plus, Hannah and Lane agree with me, right guys?" She turned to us and smiled.

"Oh, of course!" Hannah said enthusiastically. Of course I could tell she was acting, as she had never been a good actress.

I nodded and turned to select my bow. There were only a few for lefties but I was able to snag one.

Secretly, I agreed with Sally. How could we be doing archery? It was one of the dumbest sports around! You'd think they could pick something actually entertaining.

After the teacher, Mr. Calla, had instructed us on the rules and how to shoot and blah … I picked up my bow, placed in the arrow, and shot. Of course, not really even trying, my arrow made a bulls-eye, on Hannah's target! I was so embarrassed. I felt like running away and hiding. The teacher came up to me.

"Hi," he said. He looked like he was nice.

"Hi," I said back. I didn't really know what to say.

"Are you left eye dominant or right eye dominant?" he asked.

What the heck was he talking about? Left eye dominant? Right eye dominant? I just gave him a blank stare, hoping that would answer his question.

"Well?" he asked.

"Um, well, I-I'm left handed," I said. Man, I felt SO stupid!

Mr. Calla just smiled. "Ok," he said. "Look at my finger with both of your eyes." He lifted his finger in front of his face and I looked at it, like he told me to.

"Now point to it with your finger." So I did.

"Now close each eye one at a time, but keep looking and pointing at my finger. With which eye are you pointing closest to where my finger was when you were looking at it with both eyes?"

This kind of confused me but I got the general idea and did what he told me to do. "Ok?" I asked. What was that going to prove?

"Well, which eye made it so that you were pointing closest to my finger?"

I kind of gave him a blank stare. "Um," I thought about it. "My … right eye." I said.

He smiled and said, "Do you want to try a right handed bow? I think that might work better for you."

Ok, first he wanted me to find my stupid 'dominant eye', which seemed to have no real point, and next he wanted me to change what hand I used! What next? Dress as a hippie and do the tango? Even though I didn't understand it, I took up a right-handed bow like he said, loaded my arrow, and shot. I didn't really aim and I hit the hay a couple inches from my target. What was the point of switching bows if it wasn't going to make a difference?

"Well you can't expect to hit anything when you don't aim," Mr. Calla said in reply to my exasperated … noise. Why was he hanging around me? Why couldn't he go bother anyone else? I decided to TRY and aim and then see if he would leave me alone. I loaded an arrow, pointed it in the general direction of the yellow (that's in the center of the target for all you geniuses out there) and was about to shoot … when Mr. Calla stopped me. Again! Gosh, what was this guy's problem?

"Focus, Lane, focus," he said. Yeah, right! What did he think I had been doing? Um … never mind.

I don't know how I did it, but I 'focused' on the yellow, then the tip of my arrow, then I like … crossed my eyes or something to make it all sort of morph together but I mostly saw yellow, then, I shot. Don't ask me how I did it, but I got a bull's-eye. And yes, it was on MY target.

"Good, very good," Mr. Calla said, walking away. I sighed. Yes! Now I didn't have to focus! But you know what? I couldn't help it! I mean, by the time we were done with two hours of archery, the yellow part on my target was totally and COMPLETELY gone. Not that it thrilled me very much. It was still a lame sport.

Author's Note: Just so you know, this chapter does have a point. Please review!