"Let's see P.E. guess that's a study period for me. At this point, that's a blessing. At least in the library I may get the looks, but last time I checked you had to be quiet."
She quickly realized she had been talking aloud to herself, looked around, and was grateful that nobody had been watching. She went to her locker, took out a few books, and then headed for the gym. Walking into the locker room, she looked around and noticed the Coach's office right by the door. Walking inside, she saw nobody there; she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to return before heading back into the main hallway.
Walking toward the lockers, she stopped when she heard a few voices coming from the other side. She started to approach the chattering girls, to ask them if they knew where the coach was, but stopped when she heard her name mentioned.
"So have you had any classes with the new school genius? What's her name?"
"Nancy, yea, I had Algebra with her this morning. Miss Bass was making such a big deal about her being in the class. Having her here is going to be such a pain."
"I know what you mean. We had a quiz in History, and Mr. Evans said since it was her first day, she didn't have to take it. Can you believe it, she said she wanted to. I think she was just sucking up, bet she thinks she's better than the rest of us."
"I bet Little Miss Brain won't have to take Gym. I bet they think she's too young. Yet we, who are Juniors, have to take Gym. I hate Gym."
"I agree with you, but we better hurry before Coach gets mad. You know how she hates us to be later. I don't want to run laps again today."
The two girls closed their lockers and started to head out the door. Nancy ducked behind some lockers so they wouldn't see her. When they were long out of sight, Nancy sat down for a minute to think. Nancy slid her hand in her pocket pulling out the note that Phoebe had given her that morning. She remembered what Phoebe said, and totally understood. Already after just three hours of school, she was feeling the exhaustion. However, she was more then feeling tired, she was now hurt. It was one thing to know people didn't understand her, but to judge her the harsh way those girls were, and to hear the things they were saying, cut deeper then any punch she had ever received.
Deciding that if she was going to make friends, she had to prove herself, she put the note back in her pocket, and walked into the nearest storage room. Grabbing a uniform that looked like it would fit; she changed as quickly as possible. After tying her tennis shoes, she sat back down on the bench, almost having second thoughts. She knew if Prue found out, she might be pulled from school, and given a personal tutor. Deciding that she had to give it a try, at least for one day, she went as fast as she could into the gym.
Walking into the gym, she got funny looks as usual, but she knew it had more to do with her uniform, it didn't quite fit properly. The shorts were fine, but the shirt was a few sizes to big, because Nancy couldn't fill it out in all the right places. Nancy saw the two girls who had been talking about her, their looks had 'What is she doing here?' written all over them.
"Hi. You must be Nancy."
"Yes, I'm sorry I'm late. I couldn't find a uniform that would fit."
"No problem. After class, we'll find one that more suited for you. I'm coach Carol, everyone calls me Carol. Take a seat; I was just about to go over what we'll be doing the next few weeks."
Nancy sat down and listed to what the coach had to say. Inside she prayed that whatever unit they were on wouldn't be too difficult for her to participate in.
"Alright ladies, we're going to have a basketball unit."
"OH MAN"
Was coming out of nearly every girl's mouth in the class. Nancy looked around and could see small groups of girls were happy about it, but most of them were complaining loudly. Nancy didn't understand, she had shot hoop many times with her Dad, and usually had a great time.
"Alright ladies, that's enough. It will be painless, I promise. Now why doesn't everyone grab a ball? I want you paired up in groups of three so we can practice passing."
Everyone got up off the bleachers and headed to the ball rack. They started to pair up with their friends, as Nancy stood off to the side not really sure where she should go.
"Nancy, why don't you work with Jill and Susan?
When she turned around to see who she would be working with, to her surprise, and disappointment, it was the girls from the locker room. Deciding not to make a big deal about it, or to let on that she knew what they had said, she simply walked over by them and took her place.
Carol spent a few minutes explaining the correct ways to do a bounce pass, and a chest pass, then told the girls to practice. Jill and Susan began to pass the ball back and forth to each other, completely leaving Nancy out. Carol noticed and yelled,
"Girls I would like Nancy to practice too!"
Jill reluctantly passed the ball to Nancy. Nancy was glad when she didn't drop it, for Jill threw it very hard causing Nancy's muscles to tighten. After ten more minutes of passing practice, Nancy was relieved when Carol said she wanted the girls to just practice shooting the ball. She grabbed a few more balls and assed them out. Nancy grabbed a ball, and made a few impressive shots. A few of the girls that Nancy knew were happy with the basketball unit, came over noticed, and came over to talk to her.
"Not bad for someone your age. Ever played on a team?"
"No, I just used to shoot around with my Dad a lot."
"To bad you're so young. We could use a good outside shooter on our team."
"Well I may not be able to play, but if you guys ever need an equipment manager, I'd be happy to help out."
"You would be willing to that?"
"Sure why not?"
"No reason. I'm Hope, and this is Tricia, we're the captains of the team. If you're serious we'll talk to the coach later on today."
"Just let me know."
Nancy really did want to help, for many different reasons. These were the first people to voluntarily talk to her, so this was her way of saying thanks. It was also her way of showing that she didn't think she was above doing the grunt work. She knew the Gym classes wouldn't last long. She was planning on giving Carol the not right after class, with an explanation as to why she didn't give it to her before class. She needed to come up with a different way to fit in.
Carol blew her whistle, telling the girls to get back to their shooting. Hope and Tricia returned to their shooting, while Nancy decided to try to stay in the background for the rest of the class. She positioned herself by the basket rebounding balls, and then passing them off to other girls to make the shots. That took very little energy to do. Nancy was waiting for the next ball to drop when she heard her name being called.
"Hey Nancy, catch!"
Turning around, she saw a ball heading right for her face. Trying to get out of the way, she turned her body, but was surprised when a second ball came out of nowhere and made contact with her eye. The first ball hit her right in the lower back as her body was heading for the floor, she landed hard.
She tried to focus on who had thrown the ball, and looked around to make sure that no more were coming. She knew that it had been Jill and Susan. Carol blew her whistle again, and ran over to the group of girls that had formed around Nancy. Carol got through the crowd of people, at first not noticing Nancy lying on the ground.
"Alright, why is everyone standing around? The period is almost over and ….What happened? Someone go and get the nurse."
Carol got on the floor right next to Nancy who was holding her head, and making no attempt to get up. Nancy quickly came to her senses, and sat up. Nurse could mean hospital, hospital means Prue gets called, Prue get called meant Nancy was in really big trouble. She couldn't let that happen.
"No. I'm alright."
"Are you sure?"
Nodding her head yes she got to her feet with a little help from Carol. She was afraid to say too much, she was doing a pretty good job of not showing how much pain she was in. If she opened her mouth too much, she might not be able to cover up the shaky sound in her voice.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
"Someone took a shot, and I wasn't paying attention. It bounced off the rim and hit me in the face. I'm fine."
"Well you have a nice bruise on your face. I still think you should see the nurse. After you take a shower, I'm going to take you to see her."
"But.."
"No, I insist. Lunch is next, so you won't miss anything. Everyone gather up the balls, put them on the rack and head to the locker room. Nancy come to my office when you're changed and we'll go see the nurse. As long as you're fine, we won't call your parents."
Nancy was about to correct her and tell her that she lived with her cousins, but decided not to. Carol walked Nancy to the locker room, then headed to her office to wait. Nancy grabbed a towel off the shelf and sat on the bench for a while before deciding she should change in the bathroom instead of going into the shower. She wanted to check her back, the pain in her head was one thing, but her back felt like it was one fire. Every move she made caused little surges of pain to go through her body.