Death's Academy (9 page)

A wide smile splits my face. Everything is working like clockwork. The velocity and trajectory of her head coming into the direct path of the rocketing skull is going to knock her out cold. Now I may be wrong, but being unconscious might make it hard to play in the skull ball championship.

My bliss is short-lived. I suddenly notice that the skull is rotating in the wrong direction and hooking to the left. It misses her, screaming wide by half an inch.

A gasp explodes from my body. The impact of the skull was going to stop her! She’s still flying toward the street and the oncoming car! I only wanted to knock her out, not kill her!

Just then, with reflexes of a jungle leopard, the halo girl’s hand whips out and catches a young tree sapling. Her grip tightens and it jerks her backward. Her
momentum rips the little tree out of the ground, and she crashes to the earth.

The car speeds by, completely oblivious to the girl sprawled out on the pavement only a few feet away. My stomach is playing patty-cake with my tonsils. The halo girl gets up gingerly. Wincing, she brushes the rocks and dirt off of her back and shorts.

I’m glued to the spot, still in shock, when her eyes flick up and lock onto mine. She looks quizzically at me for a moment, and then her look darkens, and a scowl contorts her beautiful face.

“Hoodie,” she hisses.

“Ruh-roh,” I hear Sparky call out from the neighbor’s yard.

Like I said, I don’t speak golden retriever, but I’m pretty positive that is translated into “Oh, crap.”

I turn on the spot and run. I don’t stop running when I hit the end of the street; I don’t stop when I hit the end of the next two streets after that. Not only did my plan not work, but also in an hour when she sees me at the championship, there is going to be Heaven to pay.

Coach Mist Madison was, according to the stories, a prodigious skull ball player in her day. The years haven’t been kind since then. These days she spends more time at the buffet table than she does at the skull ball field. Her head is a pink pumpkin with a black straw crew cut. Below her uniquely shaped head is her torso that can be best described as a bell made of gelatin.

She grabs me by the shirt and rushes me toward the locker room. “How can you be late on a day like today?” she asks and gives me a shake.

“Sorry, Coach. I kind of got sidetracked.”

“Mal says you just ran off, and she couldn’t catch up to you. Where were you running to?”

“Uh,” I stammer.

“Never mind.” With an out-of-breath huff, she heaves me through the door. “Get changed and be out here in one minute!”

I jerk open my locker and pull my neatly pressed uniform from the top shelf. Our uniforms are the same color and design as the hoodie team from Death’s Academy. Of course the main color is black, but it does have dark purple stripes along the collar, the cuffs of the sleeves, and down the side of the shorts. A stark white skull patch is over the left breast.

I throw on my bone-plated knee and shin guards and slide my rolling gloves over my hands. I glance at myself in the mirror and take a deep breath.

“Here goes,” I whisper and head out of the locker room.

I trot down the long concrete corridor that leads to the playing field. The opening at the end lets in a blast of bright sunshine. I take the last few strides and step out onto the playing field. With a quick look around, I can tell that it’s going to be a packed house. The stands are already almost full. Half the seats are blacked out with hoodies, and the other half glimmer with halos. The scent of orange blossoms and sea spray head butt me in the nose. I wince.

“Ugh. Too many halos,” I say under my breath.

The grass is pristine and meets the regulation length of one and a quarter inch. A glint of the sun’s rays reflects off the three newly minted gold scoring rings. I trot toward the outfield where my teammates are warming up.

“About time, Smith. I was going to start warming up to be the roller today,” Dred says in his slow, monotone voice.

“You wouldn’t know which direction to roll it,” I say, brushing past him.

Dred has always thought that he is a better roller than I am, but he also still thinks baby hoodies come from the vulture. No way am I having
that
conversation with him. He’s good at what he does, though. He’s our plower, and when he smacks into one of the other team, they don’t see straight for a week.

“I didn’t think you were gonna show up. I’ve never seen someone run so fast,” Mal says as she strolls over to me tossing a skull in her hand. “Don’t get me wrong. She did look pretty vicious with that long blonde hair and lollipop face.”

“Oh, shut up, Mal,” I grunt.

She turns on the spot and chucks the skull through one of the golden scoring hoops.

“Not bad,” I say.

“Yeah, but it won’t matter. I won’t get enough chances if your new roll doesn’t work,” she answers.

“Shh!” I hiss and look around to see if anyone else heard her. “You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”

She folds her arms, raises an eyebrow, and shakes her head.

“No.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Good.” A skull rolls to my feet, and I pick it up and start tossing it back and forth in my hands.

“Did you see him?” she asks.

“Did I see who?” I say distractedly.

“The coach from Death’s Academy.”

I catch hold of the skull and spin on the spot. My eyes dart from one side of the stands to the other. “Where is he?”

“In the Regent’s box, up near the announcers,” she responds.

I find the box, and, sure enough, I can see a man with long, slicked-back hair sitting next to the Regent. I gulp.

“Well you’d better start warming up. Game starts in five,” Mal says and heads over to the other scampers.

I nod and stretch my arms. My other teammates know that I don’t like to talk too much before a match, so they keep their distance. I get in my stance and visualize my new roll. I’m not going to actually practice it right now; I don’t want the halos to know what they’re in for.

I guess now would probably be a good time to explain to you shorties how you play skull ball. If you are at all familiar with your games like soccer, baseball, football, or kickball, you’ll notice some similarities. Don’t get any smart ideas. We didn’t copy it from you shorties. We’ve been playing it for over a thousand years.

First, let me explain what the field looks like. If you were looking at the field from the sky, you would immediately notice that it is shaped like a cone, very much like your baseball field. At the tip of the cone there’s a rectangular box three feet wide by six feet long. It is painted half white and half black. It is
called the coffin. The roller stands forty feet in front of the coffin. Twenty feet directly behind the roller is the “peak,” a small, raised mound with a white circle painted around it. The peak acts like a base for the offensive player. Up to five offensive players can be protected inside the peak at a time.

Sixty feet behind the peak are three golden rings spread out fifty feet from each other—one in left field, one in center field, one in right field. They stand ten feet off the ground and are six feet wide.

So that’s the playing field. Let me explain how you win. The first team to score twenty-one points is the victor. There aren’t any time restrictions. In fact, the longest skull ball match in history happened just over two hundred years ago. It was between the Reapers and the Harps. It lasted thirteen hours and twenty-nine minutes. Two hoodies were hospitalized, and I’m happy to say five halos were too.

You can score points in two different ways. When the roller rolls the skull, the offensive player can strike it and try to get it through one of the golden rings. It is extremely difficult. If you are successful, and the skull goes through the ring, then your team gets seven points.

If you don’t get it through one of the rings, then you’ve got to run for your life for the peak. The defensive players can “bury” you in three different ways. One way is by catching the skull before it hits the ground. Another is throwing the skull and hitting you with it before you reach the peak, and the last way is by throwing it to the peak-man who stands with
his foot on the white circle surrounding the peak. If the peak-man catches it before the offensive player reaches the peak, then the offense is buried and the teams switch sides.

However, if the offensive player makes it safely to the peak, then things get interesting. When the next offensive player strikes the skull, the player inside the peak can leave the safety of the circle and try to get the skull before the defensive team does. If he does, then he tries to throw the skull through one of the golden rings. If he gets it through the golden ring before getting tackled or losing the skull, then his team gets a point and he can return to the safety of the peak. As you can imagine, the more offensive players you can get into the peak’s circle, the better chance your team will have of getting the skull from the defense and throwing it through the golden rings.

To stop the offense, there are six defensive players, not counting the peak-man and roller. Their jobs entail stopping the offensive players from throwing the skull through the golden rings. There are three ringers who protect their respective rings. There are two scampers who are fast and agile. They roam the field to bury the offensive player in any way they can. Then there is the plower. His job is to be the nasty one on the field. He does exactly what his name suggests; he plows the opposition into the ground.

My job as the roller, which is by far the most important position, is to roll the skull in such a way that it makes it difficult for the offensive player to strike the skull. I can roll the skull any way that I want, but the
rule is that it has to roll across a piece of the coffin or the striker gets to go straight to the peak.

A shrill whistle blast fills the air, and a tinny voice calls out over the speakers.

“Captains to the peak.”

I’m the captain, so I toss the skull over to the rest of my teammates. Mal and I catch each other’s eye. She gives me a thumbs-up and I nod back to her. I take a deep breath and slap my face a couple of times. “You can do it! You can do it!” I yell. I turn and head for the peak.

My eyes wander into the stands, and I find the Regent’s box. I can see the Death’s Academy coach talking animatedly to some other people sitting around him. He’s probably talking up this upcoming year’s team and how well we are going to do. I say “we” because I fully intend to be on that team. I know I’m the best roller my age, and with this new roll I’m going to knock their socks off … at least I hope so. I didn’t study a lick for my practice exam. It’s this afternoon. So I’ve got to do great today, or I’m up the River Styx without a paddle.

“Whoa there, son,” a voice calls out.

Startled, I look up, and I am nose to nose with the umpire. I stop short and jump back sheepishly.

“Sorry,” I say, and I see her. The halo captain is none other than the girl I nearly killed an hour earlier. If she could shoot lasers from her eyes, I would have a fiery hole burned right through my forehead. I can hear her teeth gritting and her knuckles popping. I gulp.

The tinny voice from before rings out over the loud speakers: “Welcome Guardian Angels and Deaths to the Under-14 Skull Ball Championship. For today’s match we have the pleasure of welcoming Lightcrest Michaels, the hero of the
Queen Suzanne
, to do the honorary coin toss and guest announce.” A deafening cheer goes up from the halo’s side.

Queen Suzanne
,
Queen Suzanne
? Why does that sound familiar, I almost say out loud. It seems like I should know what he means by the “hero of the
Queen Suzanne
.”

I see a tall, muscular halo striding breezily toward us. His sun-kissed blond hair ripples in the air like a flag atop a ship’s mast. A dazzling smile is plastered across his face. He’s carrying a golden coin in his right hand and a skull underneath his left arm. He reaches us at the peak and turns and waves at the crowd.

“Black captain, it’s your field, your call. Heads or tails?” the umpire asks.

“Tails,” I say.

The halo Lightcrest Michaels tosses the golden coin into the air and it hits the grass with a thud.

“It’s heads,” the umpire says. “White, you’ve won the toss. It’s your choice. Do you want to defend the rings or attack them?”

The girl’s eyes haven’t ceased boring into me. “We’ll attack,” she says.

The umpire nods and pulls his gazer from his pocket and speaks into it. His voice echoes over the loudspeakers.

“White has won the toss and will be attacking.”

The halo half of the stands cheers. Lightcrest Michaels turns to the girl and pats her on the shoulder.

“Be the hero, honey,” he says and then looks at me and grunts something I can’t make out before turning to walk away.

“I will, Daddy,” she calls, her eyes still fixated on me. She then flicks her head to the side and spits before leaving to go back to her team.