For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1

Scene 10: Everyone Has a Skill
(Age: 13)

Kara did her best not to listen to the groans as her PE teacher assigned her to one of the teams. She knew her 'teammates' were anything but happy at the thought of her being there --and she wasn't particularly thrilled at the prospect herself-- but the bottom line was that they weren't being given a choice so they were just going to have to deal, all of them.

Still, knowing better than to say anything --and wanting to get away from her so-called-teammates' glares for as long as she could-- Kara made her way to the back of the stands to wait for her turn. After all, it wasn't like she had anything better to do for the first half of the class, seeing how she was in the fourth and final team. That was definitely a downside of being 'Thrace'. She really would have liked to get the whole stupid thing over with as soon as possible but, with her last name being what it was, that wasn't going to happen and she knew it.

She was only half paying attention to what was going on in the court but still she couldn't help but wince when one kid slammed hard into another one, causing him to take what looked like a pretty painful fall. At that sight Kara couldn't help but roll her eyes. Sure, that had been a foul by anyone's standards but honestly, it was like that kid had no clue when it came to how to land and as a result he had managed to twist himself exactly the wrong way. In spite of that, she knew he wasn't really hurt, at least not badly. Given how he was moving Kara was fairly certain that at most he had bruised his shoulder.

Well, the good news was that, given what she had seen so far in the court, chances were she wouldn't be the worst in the class. After all, that was one mistake she was unlikely to make, even if she had never really played pyramid before. She had seen other kids playing, of course --and she had even watched a couple of professional games on TV-- but she had never exactly been asked to join in... not that she'd ever wanted to.

Kara was still thinking about that when the first match was over and she found herself reluctantly approaching the court.

The truth was that she was more than a little nervous. She was used to being on her own and as a result being part of a team was pretty much a new experience for her but after a couple of minutes she started to relax. Teamwork may have been something she was not particularly comfortable with but she soon discovered that the game itself was nowhere near as hard as she had thought it would be. Her movements seemed to flow almost naturally and --to her surprise-- years of dodging all kinds of flying missiles had actually given her some pretty sharp reflexes. Sure, her mom's aim wasn't particularly accurate --especially when she'd been drinking... and she'd always been drinking-- but the bottom line was that one thing Kara certainly knew, and knew extremely well, was how to duck. That and how to take a fall.

As it turned out, that too gave her an unexpected edge on the court. Her stubborn determination to keep going when everyone expected her just to give up was something she realized almost immediately she could use to her advantage... and the truth was that the game was kind of fun.

Of course, even though the movements seemed to come naturally to her, the whole being part of a team thing was a different story all together. Whenever she got hold of the ball Kara basically refused to let it go and the idea of passing it to someone else never really crossed her mind... not that that was much of a problem.

Even though --especially at first-- her teammates hadn't really been doing much to include her, she still managed to get a hold of the ball seven times before the game was over and only once did she let go of it without scoring. Her teammates were delighted when they realized that they had won but Kara could hardly keep herself from jumping out of her skin when she felt a heavy hand land on her shoulder.