Disclaimer: The city of Alexandria, the original Titans and their families belong to themselves while fictional characters from the film Remember the Titans belong to Disney. Crayola belongs to the Crayola Crayon Company. Alice in Wonderland belongs to Lewis Carroll. Barbie belongs to Mattel and Kool-Aid to Kraft Foods. I only own Tamsin, her mother and her friends.
Author's Notes: At last, an update! I'm very sorry it took so long again, but I had a bit of computer trouble. I still do, actually :-( Anyway, thanks to me, Sundiata, darkdestiney2000 and fufulupin for reviewing. I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Chapter Two — Betsy's Revenge
"Tamsin, dear, what are you doing inside on a day like this?"
Tamsin Lee looked up from the picture she was drawing and found her mother standing in the doorway to her room, a slender figure in blue. No, not just blue, Tamsin thought. Turquoise. That's what her deluxe 64-crayon Crayola box called it. "I'm drawing," she finally said.
"But it's such a lovely day, darling! Why don't you go outside?"
She shrugged. "There's nothing to do outside."
"There's always something to do outside! Why don't you play with some of the neighborhood children?"
"I don't know any of them, Mom."
"Well, I'm not surprised, given the way you shut yourself up in the house all day long! Come on, sweetie — the Hoyts down the street are new in town and they have that little girl who's about your age, remember? I'm sure they'll be happy to know that Emma's making friends."
A slight frown was beginning on Tamsin's small face. "How do you know that she and I will be friends?"
Her mother was starting to frown, too. "Well, if she doesn't like you, then she doesn't know a good person when she sees one," she replied, her hands on her hips. "Come on, Tamsin, please don't give me a hard time."
"But I don't want to go out!"
"You will if you know what's good for you, Tamsin Rose Lee!"
That had sounded dangerously like a threat for a spanking, so Tamsin shut her mouth, put down her crayons, and went outside like her mother told her to do.
She knew where the Hoyts' house was. She had gone there last week with her mother, her Uncle Jon and a welcome-to-the-neighborhood cake. Tamsin thought Emma looked like Alice from Alice in Wonderland and that she seemed pretty nice, but it had been a short visit so they didn't have the time to get to know each other better.
She found Emma on her porch, playing with another little girl. For a while, Tamsin thought of just returning home, as Emma seemed to already have a friend, but then decided to stay. Her mother would be pleased when she found out that Tamsin had made two friends instead of just one.
Mustering up her courage — because she was rather shy with people she didn't know, especially kids — Tamsin went up the Hoyts' front walk, toward the two girls. "Hi, Emma," she said in a loud voice to make sure they could hear her. "I'm Tamsin Lee. Do you remember me?"
Emma looked up and smiled at her. "Hi, Tamsin. Yes, I remember you."
"What are you doing?"
"Playing," the blonde girl replied, holding up a Barbie doll in a dramatic black evening gown. The other girl, who was busy dressing her own doll, said nothing.
"That's nice." Tamsin nodded at the doll, not knowing what else to say to make conversation. "She's pretty."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." She locked her hands behind her back and peered at the jumble of doll clothes on the porch. She couldn't find a third doll that she could play with, but decided to go ahead and ask anyway. "Can I — may I play with you?"
Emma smiled. Tamsin thought she was about to say yes, but the other girl spoke up before Emma could. "I don't play with Japs."
"Betsy!" Emma gasped.
"I'm not Japanese," Tamsin told the girl named Betsy. "I'm Chinese."
"Same difference," said Betsy, not even bothering to look at Tamsin as she spoke. "Come on, Emma, let's go to my house."
Her cheeks burning at the curt dismissal, Tamsin turned away and ran, her dark braids flying behind her. She didn't want to watch them leave and she didn't want to let them see her crying.
Why did her mother make her go to Emma's house? she wondered as she continued on down the street. Tamsin had known that they wouldn't like her, but her mother wouldn't listen. She couldn't wait to get home and tell Mom that she was wrong. But a small part of Tamsin wished that her mother had been right and that Emma would have wanted to be her friend.
Suddenly, she bumped into something. "Ow!" the something cried.
Tamsin backed away, scrubbing at her eyes. "Sorry," she said. When she could see again, she saw that she had run into a tall black girl in a faded cotton dress. Another black girl stood nearby, a jumping rope in her hand. "I'm sorry," she repeated.
"What's the matter?" the first girl asked as she rubbed her back. "You havin' trouble seein' or somethin'?"
"No, I was—" she gave an embarrassed sniffle and looked at the ground. "Never mind."
"You been cryin'?"
Tamsin shook her head even as she sniffled again. "Never mind, I said."
"I'm Sharon Williams."
She blinked, startled, and looked up. "What?"
"Sharon Williams," the girl repeated. "That's my name. And this here's Cat Davidson."
"Hi," the second girl said.
"Cat?" Tamsin asked. "Like the animal?"
"That's right," Cat replied with a smile. "It's short for 'Catherine,' but I thought 'Cathy' was too ordinary, so I made everyone call me 'Cat' instead."
Tamsin found herself smiling, too. "That's…interesting," she finally said. It was a nice story and she thought it was great that Cat could make people call her what she wanted to be called, but she really didn't know what to say.
"What's your name?" Sharon asked her then.
"Oh, sorry, I forgot…I'm Tamsin Lee."
"Pretty name." Cat nodded her approval. "If I had me a name like that, I wouldn't need a special nickname. Wanna play with us, Tamsin?"
Tamsin's eyes widened. "Play with you?"
"Sure." Sharon pointed to another jumping rope lying on the ground nearby. "We need another person so we can play Double Dutch jump rope. How about it?"
"Or maybe you don't play with blacks?" Cat suggested then, looking suspicious for the first time.
Tamsin didn't like Cat's tone of voice, but she understood why the other girl was using it. She met Cat's stare head-on. "We don't care about that kind of thing at home," she said. "I can play with whoever I like."
"So you'll play with us?"
"Sure."
Tamsin wasn't very good at Double Dutch, so she let Cat and Sharon take all her turns while she turned the jumping ropes. That suited them all just fine, and the three girls had fun jumping rope and calling out rhymes. They had to stop after a while though, because it was a hot afternoon and they got tired easily.
They sat down on the grassy part of the curb and Cat stuck out her tongue, making an exhausted face. She fanned the front of her dress to try and cool down. "Man, is it hot. I wish it would rain."
"It's summer, silly," Sharon reminded her, swiping at her forehead with the back of her hand. "You should be wishin' the ice cream man shows up."
"But we ain't got no money."
"Even if we don't buy anything, we can just stand near the window and suck in some cold air." Sharon sighed wistfully at the thought.
Tamsin sighed, too. Turning the ropes and calling out rhymes was just as tiring as jumping. She, too, was hot and sweaty. Something cold and frosty would be real good right about now…A-HA! "I know!" she said, sitting up. "We could make snow cones!"
"Snow cones?" Sharon asked.
Tamsin nodded, pleased that she had their attention. She and Uncle Jon always made snow cones in the summer instead of buying ice cream. "It's easy — you just need juice and crushed ice."
"We've got Kool-Aid at home," Cat told her, "and my grandma has an ice crusher."
"Will she let us use it?"
Sharon jumped up. "Sure," she said. "Cat's grandma is a real nice lady." She held out her hands and arched her eyebrow at the other two girls. "Come on! I'm thirsty!"
Tamsin watched Cat grab hold of one of Sharon's hands and stand up. Smiling, she took hold of the other one, jumped to her feet and ran after her new friends.
Gerry whistled cheerfully as he walked down the Bertiers' second-floor hallway to his room. The lineup for the football club was coming along nicely. Besides Ronnie Bass, Alan Bosely and the Hunter twins had agreed to join the club. According to Little Julius, Blue Stanton and Lewie Lastik were in, too, and Jerry Harris was going to ask his father about having less choir practice so he could play football. If they got enough people, they could still let Ray Budds join, but keep him as a reserve. That way, they could use his yard to practice in but not necessarily have to actually play with him.
"More tea, Princess Juliet?" Betsy asked as Gerry walked past her room. Her dramatic tone of voice made him snicker. His sister wasn't bad for a girl, but she played the dumbest games.
"Thank you, Princess Aurora, I'd love more tea."
The response to Betsy's question made him stop walking. That wasn't one of his sister's fake voices. Gerry backtracked a bit and peeked into the open doorway.
His sister was sitting amid heaps of girl toys, pretending to drink from a pink plastic teacup. He was just about to laugh at the stupid crown on her head when he noticed the other girl in the room.
Even though he was only seven and basically thought girls were silly, Gerry had to admit that this one was pretty. She had yellow hair and big blue eyes like the girls in the storybooks his momma read aloud at bedtime. She was wearing a crown, too, but on her it didn't look stupid. It made her look like a real princess.
Just then, both girls saw him. Betsy put her teacup down with a clatter and glared at her brother. "Get out of here, Gerry!"
"I don't wanna," he drawled, grinning the grin that he knew would annoy the heck out of her. "Who's your friend?"
"I'm Emma Hoyt," the girl said before Betsy could answer. "I just moved here a couple of weeks ago."
"Hi, Emma; I'm Gerry, Betsy's big brother. Welcome to the neighborhood," he added, hoping the greeting made him sound more grownup.
"Thank you."
Gerry thought Emma had a very pretty smile, almost as pretty as his momma's. "Have you met other kids in the neighborhood yet?"
"Some," she replied. "Not very many yet. I s'pose I'll meet them all when school starts."
"Aw, that's still ages away. If you want, you can join this new club me and my friends have started. That way you can meet some more kids."
Suddenly, there was an angry screech from Betsy. "You're askin' her to join the football club?" she demanded, jumping to her feet and knocking her crown over one eye. "After you said I couldn't join? That ain't fair, Gerry Bertier!"
"Oh, well, me an' Julius were talkin' about it the other day and we decided to let girls join," Gerry told her, thinking fast. He hoped Julius wouldn't say no when they finally did talk about it. "Do you wanna join, too, Bets?"
"Yes, please join, Betsy," Emma said. "I don't want to be the only girl in the club."
Betsy folded her arms and scowled. Gerry's heart sank when it became obvious what her answer was going to be. "No!" she snapped.
"Come on, Betsy," he entreated. "Me an' Julius were still talking about the rules when you asked to join. Now we know what the rules are, you can join."
"I wouldn't join your stupid ol' club even if you paid me!"
"Stop shouting, Betsy; we have company!"
"This is my house, too, and I'll talk however I want!" Betsy gave him her best eye-blazing, nostril-flaring, chin-jutting glare. "Emma an' me aren't joinin' your stupid football club!"
Gerry looked at Emma, hoping she would say that she was joining the football club even without Betsy, but the blonde girl looked apologetic. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I'm not joining if Betsy's not joining."
"Darned right I ain't joinin'," Betsy declared. "Me n' Emma are startin' our own football club, just for girls, and Gerry, we'll beat you boys to smithereens!"