Playing Defense (Corrigan Falls Raiders) (6 page)

“They’re not required,” I said. “But you can’t just hide in the bathroom, okay? You have to
try
to enjoy yourself. You have to actually watch the game and maybe even cheer. Right? You need to go into this with the spirit of awesomeness.”

She rolled her eyes. “I am going to be so tired of ‘awesome’ by the time this is over…”

“Over?” Karen said. “Oh, no, I don’t think this is
ever
over. This is the first day of the rest of our awesome lives. So, you’ll come to the next Raiders’ game with me. Tomorrow night!” Her smile shifted from innocently happy to something much more wicked as she asked Claudia, “What’s Winslow’s challenge?”

“Going to a hockey game is not that hard!” I said quickly. “Most people
pay
to be there. It’s a treat! I’ve essentially given you a gift. Wasn’t that nice of me?”

Claudia smiled serenely. “Why, yes, it was very kind. And I would like to give you a gift in return. The gift of mathematical understanding.”

I could see Karen smirking from the corner of my eye. She was
definitely
going to have to work on bringing her nice self to the surface. “What’s that gift going to look like?” I asked cautiously.

“Oh, it won’t be visible. But the process you go through to receive the gift? It’s going to look a lot like studying.
Assisted
studying, sometimes, but sometimes just on your own.”

“I’m already doing that!”

“You need to do it
more
.” Claudia frowned. “How long will this hockey thing take? Like, not just the game, but the whole experience. Leaving my house, driving to the arena, watching people eat tubular meat by-products, the game itself, going home…the whole thing. How long?”

“You may want to go out
after
the game,” I suggested. “We don’t have a game Saturday, so no curfew tomorrow. I think if you’re approaching this with a true spirit of awesomeness, you need to be open to the possibility of doing something postgame. It’s part of the tradition.”

Claudia raised an eyebrow. “Okay. How long for the core activity, and then how long for the optional time?”

“Four hours for the game, three for the party,” I guessed.

“So I want four hours of hard studying from you.” She shrugged. “And then if I go out to the party or whatever, you owe me that amount of extra studying time. Deal?”

“You want me to study math for
seven hours
? How long do I have to get it done?”

“They’re not traveling this weekend,” Karen told Claudia. “He’ll have more time this weekend than he will for the next two weeks.”

“Okay, then. Four hours this weekend. The extra three hours sometime next week, if you can’t fit it in over the weekend. And our lunch sessions don’t count. We can spend those just on chemistry, now that you’ve got all this extra functions time.”

“You want me to study
math
?” I grumbled.

“You want me to watch a
hockey game
?” Claudia replied with the same intonation, and with a little wrinkle of her nose that I should have found annoying instead of cute.

“Neither one of you is going into this with the proper attitude,” Karen scolded.

She was right. I made myself nod and smile. “Okay. Math. Functions. That’ll be great. Math is a good way to—to help us understand the world. I’m looking forward to learning more about it. And it’ll be good to get my grades up, too. Awesome.”

Karen shrugged, clearly not impressed but not ready to make a fuss over my effort. Instead, she turned to Claudia, who dutifully said, “Hockey. Lots of people like it. Maybe I will, too. It’s…our national sport. Part of our identity. Sports are a good way to bond with people from all different social groups. I’m broadening my horizons.” She looked at me with a sort of calm acceptance, like we were marching off to war together. “Awesome.”

Chapter Five

“Are you sure you don’t want to be part of it?” I asked Annalise. I’d gotten permission from Karen and Chris to invite Annalise and Oliver into the group, in exchange for Karen being allowed to invite all three of her half siblings. Chris had said he’d hold his invitations in reserve. “It’s a bit silly, I know, but it’s kind of fun, too.”

“Fun? Claudia, you’re going to a
hockey game
. How is that fun?”

“Lots of people think watching hockey is fun.”

“And since when are you ‘lots of people’? Since when are you a sheep?”

“Trying new things isn’t the same as being a sheep. And honestly, I don’t think
my
challenges are up for debate. That’s between me and the sisters. I’m just asking if you want to be part of the program as a whole. We’d have different challenges for you.”

“No,” she said, and stuck her nose back into her book. It was only a couple minutes before class started so I guess she felt like she needed to get as many words into her head as possible before she had to deprive herself for seventy-five minutes.

“I’m going to ask Oliver. And if he wants to join, you’re going to be all alone on the outside.”

She didn’t even look up. Damn. If Annalise were a sister, I’d be challenging her to do something that didn’t involve reading. And she’d probably hate me for it.

I felt kind of weird as I walked away from her, heading down the hall toward Oliver’s locker. Annalise and I had been friends since about third grade. Back then I’d been thrilled to find someone else who didn’t feel comfortable in big crowds, someone who’d rather read or study than jump around and do whatever the hell it was the other kids were doing on the playground at recess. We’d wander off to our little corner of the yard, Annalise reading as she walked, and we’d sit quietly and wait for the bell to ring. But even then, I realized, I’d been staring at the other kids, watching them as they played. I hadn’t been comfortable with them, but they’d intrigued me. Annalise? She’d been living in her books, always.

I’d gone through school with the same kids year after year, and they’d eventually stopped asking me to play their games. I’d never really been picked on, not more than an occasional eye roll or something. We’d all just sort of peacefully coexisted, without any real interaction. I’d made friends with Oliver before he came out but when he was clearly working through it all, and he’d just wanted somewhere quiet to think and watch the world from. We’d been a good pair, together in our solitude. Just like me and Annalise. That had been my life, and it had been okay.

But now, it was like some sort of chain reaction had started. Tutoring Chris had led to making friends with Karen, which had led to forming the Sisterhood and letting Chris join, and somehow, only a few days after the first event of the cycle, I was making plans to go to a hockey game.
A hockey game
.

“Life is strange,” I told Oliver as I leaned against the locker next to his.

“There’s no possible chance that Jesus loves me despite all my sins, is there?” Oliver asked. I was used to his drama
and
his non sequiturs, so I just waited him out. “Chris Winslow,” he finally explained. “The most charming, most gorgeous creature in the world. There’s no chance he’s gay and was sent to me as a gift from the Baby Jesus? Is there?”

“Uh…that’d be a weird gift from a baby,” I managed.

“Okay, leave Jesus out of it, then. Is there any chance Chris Winslow is gay?”

“I guess there’s a chance,” I admitted reluctantly. The idea was kind of startling, but I tried to approach it from a cool, scientific angle. “I mean…ten percent? Is that still the statistic?”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “I’m looking for some more inside information here, not general statistical probabilities!”

“Well, I don’t know. He’s never said anything one way or another. I’ve seen him with girls…”

“You’ve seen
me
with girls, too. I’m with a girl right now.”

I thought back, then shook my head. “No, I’ve seen him
with
girls. Like, not full-on naked or anything, but—” Oliver’s eyes bugged out a little when I mentioned Chris being naked, and I admit I was a bit thrown by remembering him with other girls, so I gave us both a chance to recover before saying, “It definitely looked more intimate than me and you right now.”

“But it could have been one-sided. Girls hang off those hockey players all the time. Doesn’t mean the players
want
them to.”

“Okay, fine,” I said grumpily. This was not what I’d come down here to talk about. “I don’t know if Chris Winslow is gay. I have no evidence one way or another, but statistics suggest he’s straight. How’s that?”

“He seems very comfortable with himself. Very relaxed and happy.”

“Relaxed? That doesn’t begin to cover it. He’s a lazy slug.” Which was a little strong, probably, but I was inexplicably annoyed by the thought of Chris being gay. He was
my
distant crush-toy, not Oliver’s! “And what’s he got to be unhappy about?”

“I don’t know. Maybe his teammates wouldn’t accept him if he came out.”

“Why do you think he’s gay?”

“I don’t know. I just…wouldn’t it be perfect if he was?”

“No!” I almost yelled.

And Oliver, that manipulative bastard, smirked at me. “Oh. It wouldn’t be? Why not? You’re not homophobic, are you? No, I don’t think so. I think you want him to be straight because you want him for
yourself
, you greedy girl.”

“Oh my God, was this whole thing a setup? You just wanted me to admit to— Do you even
like
him?”

“Well, I barely know him. But, damn, I have eyes. If he were gay, I would be more than ready to
get
to know him, you know?”

“But do you have any reason to think he
is
gay?”

Oliver shrugged. “Sometimes there’s just a
feeling
.”

“And do you have that ‘feeling’ about Chris?”

“I don’t know. It was a bit hard to really open my gaydar receptors up without getting blasted away by the waves of lust rolling off your virginal shores.”

“Waves roll
onto
shores, not off them.”

“Don’t quibble with me. You want him; you want him
bad
.”

I tried to brush it off. “Well, damn, I have
eyes
.”

“You had eyes all last year, too, but I don’t remember you even noticing the guy, let alone choking on your own desire in the middle of chemistry class.”

“I was not choking on—” I stopped. “No. I’m not going to have this conversation with you. I came down here to invite you to join a group I think you’d have really enjoyed. I think you’d have fit in well, and it would have been a chance for you to make your last year of high school just that much more awesome. But you have yipped your way right out of an invitation, my friend. Sorry about that.”

I turned to go, but I didn’t move too fast. And sure enough, before I was two steps down the hall, Oliver jumped in front of me. “What group?”

“Never mind,” I said. “There’s no point torturing you with a description when I’m not going to be inviting you to join anyway.”

“No, you’re going to invite me,” he said, trying to sound confident as I sidestepped him and continued to class. “I was just teasing. That’s what we do, you and me. We tease. We’re teasers. That’s the kind of friends we are.”

“Is it?” I asked. I let him get back in front of me so he could get the full effect of my arched brow.

“Yes. It is. Now…tell me about the group you’re going to invite me to join.”

“I don’t know,” I said. The warning bell rang at the perfect time. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Claudia!”

“Gotta go,” I said. “Time to learn. Just put this out of your mind for first period. Oh, and second period, too. And lunch, I guess, because I think I’ll be busy this lunch break. Maybe I’ll see you in chemistry? But we might not have time to talk…”

“Claudia!” he said again, with a bit more whine this time.

I smiled to myself as I headed down the hall. I’d hooked him, no doubt. He was in. I started wondering what his challenge should be.

When I walked into English, Karen was waiting for me. Instead of slinking over to my desk and waiting quietly for the class to begin, I grinned at her and she stood up and headed toward me. “I want to tell Ms. Coyne,” she said quickly. “I don’t think we can ask her to join; there might be some stuff we challenge people to do that a teacher couldn’t technically approve of. I’m not sure. But I want to tell her about it. She’ll think it’s cool, I bet, and she might have some good ideas for us.”

“Yeah. Sounds good.” The truth was, I wanted to tell
everyone
about the sisterhood. I wanted to put out a full-page ad in the newspaper and stop strangers on the street to share it all.
I was alone
, I’d tell them.
And then I found a sisterhood. One that takes boys. And it’s awesome!

…

I hadn’t really expected the call to the office. Most of the time when I get in trouble, I know it’s coming, but this time was a surprise.

Ms. Walker was the principal, and she and I generally got along best by avoiding each other. I’m sure she was a nice lady and was good at her job or whatever, but she was a really, really serious person. And not serious like Claudia seemed to be, with that vein of humor running beneath it all. No, Ms. Walker was serious all the way through, and I think it made it hard for her and me to understand each other.

So when I was called into her office, I knew I needed to keep my mouth shut and reveal as little of my natural personality as possible. She sat and stared at me like she was trying to read my mind, and it made me nervous enough that I almost started babbling, just producing whatever random crap happened to come to the surface of my brain at the time. I managed to keep my mouth shut, though, and finally she spoke.

“Mr. Winslow, what can you tell me about firecrackers?”

I thought for a second. “Is this a real question? Like, I think they’re from China, originally, right? And there are different sizes, and I could maybe tell you a bit about what they’re made from—is that what you’re asking? Or are there specific firecrackers we’re supposed to be talking about?”

She frowned at me. “Specific firecrackers. The ones that were flushed down the toilets in the boys’ locker room this morning.”

“Oh. Wow. Uh, I don’t know anything about those firecrackers. Was there a lot of damage done?”

Another frown. “I’m not appreciating the innocent act, Chris.”

“No, it’s not an act. Seriously. I can see why you might think I could be involved, but it wasn’t me. Is someone saying I did it?”

“We have cameras in the school, you know.”

“Uh, okay. So that’s good, right? I don’t even have gym this semester; I haven’t been in the locker room since last spring. You can check the cameras.”

“Convenient for you that the cameras in the gym area were disabled right before the vandalism was committed.”

Never a good thing when authority uses the word “vandalism” instead of “prank.” But I tried not to get flustered. “Okay, well, that’s actually inconvenient for me, because I wasn’t in the locker room this morning, and I don’t know anything about the firecrackers. Seriously. I’m not lying.”

“The cameras in the parking lot weren’t disabled, you know.”

It was my turn to frown. “Okay—so—I got here a bit early today? Is that what all this is about? Yeah, I was going to go to the library.”

“And did you go there?”

“Well, no. I ended up getting sidetracked. But not by firecrackers. Not by anything bad.”

“So where were you, then?”

I know it sounds stupid, but I didn’t want to tell her. I mean, I wouldn’t have minded if I could have just said I went to the caf, but she’d want to know why, and who I saw there, and she might call people down to check on my story.

And I really didn’t like the idea of dragging Claudia into this. She already thought I was a loser, and lazy, and didn’t take anything seriously; having her think I was a firecracker-flusher, too? I don’t know, I just really didn’t like that idea. “There were fifty other cars in the lot when I got here, and some of the buses were already dropping kids off, too. That means there are hundreds of kids who might have been part of this.” I didn’t want to be the asshole who acts all innocent when he isn’t, but I also didn’t want to get myself into more trouble by confessing to anything I’d done in the past. So I just said, “I can understand why maybe you’d look at me. But if all you’ve got to go on is me being here a bit earlier than usual? That’s a long way from proof, you know?”

“I don’t need proof, Chris. This isn’t a courtroom, and you’re not facing criminal charges. I mean, the police are definitely going to be involved, but that’s not what you and I are talking about. At this stage, I just need a reasonable belief.”

“Were the cameras in the caf working? You could check those.”

“The cafeteria?”

“I came in, I was going to go study, but I went to the caf instead. I hung out there for a while, then after the first bell I was in the hallway, talking to some guys from the team. MacDonald, Cooper, a couple others. I was in geography almost on time. When did the firecrackers go off?”

“Who were you in the cafeteria with?”

She asked it like she was expecting me to name my coconspirators. I just sighed. “You should probably check the cameras. Something tells me that if I told you who I was with, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

…

I’ve managed to convince most of the office personnel to call me at lunchtime rather than pulling me out of class, so I was a bit surprised when my biology teacher told me the office had called and wanted to see me. Luckily, we were just doing one of those stupid activities that are supposed to appeal to kinesthetic learners; I didn’t mind taking a trip to the office if all I was missing was making a model with a bunch of pipe cleaners and pasta.

It was weird when I got there and saw Chris Winslow sitting in one of the hard plastic chairs outside the principal’s office, though. He looked—not ashamed, exactly. But certainly more uncomfortable than I’d ever seen before. “You okay?” I asked him.