The Battle of Darcy Lane (17 page)

I got up and put it on my bookshelf.

I didn't want to know if the whole thing was somehow a trick of the eye or, worse, a hoax.

Life was long and there was plenty of time to stop believing stuff later.

I sort of missed that unicorn poster.

When I still couldn't sleep
a few hours later, after my parents had come up and gone to bed, I got up and put on a sweatshirt over my pajamas. I went downstairs, turned on one of the lights in the backyard, and went outside
to practice Russia. I was up to twelvesies when a light came on in Peter's room. A minute later, his window opened and his head popped out. “Are you crazy?” he whisper-yelled.

“I think I am!” I said back, not even trying to whisper.

“
Shhhhh.
I'm coming over.”

A few minutes later, I heard the back door of his house creak open. Soon he was at the fence, climbing and dropping down into my yard. “Julia,” he said. “It's late. You're going to wake up the whole neighborhood.”

“So?” I threw the ball way high and did the over-and-under leg clap and caught it. Only three more times to go before I hit the final move of the game.

But then noises came from my own house, and Mom appeared on the deck in her bathrobe. “Peter. I don't want to have to wake your mom.”

“Sorry.” He climbed back up over the fence and was gone.

I was about to tell Mom that I needed a few more minutes, and that it wasn't up to her to tell me to stop, but she stood there and folded her arms. “So, how hard is it?”

I did another eleven. “Not that hard.”

“Are you any good at it?”

“Pretty good.” I bounced the ball and caught it, not as a move, just for something to do.

“Good enough to win?”

“I don't know.”

She turned a lawn chair to face the patio where I was practicing and turned another of the backyard lights on, “Show me what you've got.”

I started from the beginning again and breezed through the early steps. When they started getting harder, Mom started saying things like, “Try that one again. Another seven times.” And, “That one you've got, no problem. Just keep your eye on the ball and not on your hands.”

“Mom?” I said, smiling and thinking of Laney. “What's going on?”

“What do you mean?”

I bounced my ball and caught it. “Why the sudden interest in Russia?”

“Oh, no reason.”

Dad came out, too, and pulled up a chair next to Mom but abandoned it in favor of grabbing an extra ball and trying to learn the game alongside me. He dropped it about a gazillion times before Mom said, “You're hopeless.”

“Just rusty,” Dad said.

I was doing tensies so he tried it. “This is harder than it looks.”

“Julia makes it look easy,” Mom said.

“You want to try?” He held a ball out to her.

“No, thanks.” She giggled. “I'm fine here.”

“But you used to play Leansies Clapsies!” I said.

“A lifetime ago,” she said.

They coached me all the way through to the end three times before we called it quits.

“You can do this, Julia,” Mom said solemnly when we went inside.

I nodded that I knew, but I also felt a little bit scared. When I was the only one who cared, the Russia showdown was already a big enough deal. If Mom was counting on me—if she thought that now we had something to prove together—I thought maybe I was doomed.

21
.

It was so hot Saturday
, and so humid, that I thought I might just rather die than go through with any of this. The morning crawled toward lunchtime, and I didn't really feel much like eating, so I faked it for Mom's sake and did some stretches, which seemed ridiculous even to me since I'd never done them before.

When it was nearly one, I waited on the front porch until Alyssa came out of her house with a ball in her hand. Before getting up to walk across the street, I took a few deep, calming breaths, and it was like the whole summer flashed before my eyes. The first glimpse of the pink chair. The skyscraper view and skyscraper girl. The Ouija board saying “yes.” Peter. The woods. The cicada infestation. I couldn't remember what the bugs had sounded like or
what it felt like not to wear a bra all day.

Alyssa was wearing the same outfit she'd had on the first day I met her, and for some reason that felt right.

“So you showed,” she said when I met her by her garage.

“Of course I showed.”

“And here comes our ref.” I turned and saw Andrew walking across the street. Behind him, Peter was on his skateboard. A few of the other neighborhood kids came out of the woodworks, and I wondered if any of them had any idea what was at stake here, whether they'd heard stories about the prank calls, whether Alyssa had been bragging all over town.

Alyssa's mother came out and sat on their front porch. Even some of the local dragonflies seemed to want in on the action, flying lazily around in the thick air. I hated dragonflies and their quick darting movements, and I worked to block them out the same way I was trying to block out all the spectators. I'd told my parents that they were only allowed to watch from our porch—out of my line of sight across the street.

“You ready?” Alyssa asked, just as Taylor wandered over from her house and sat on the curb by Alyssa's.

“Ready.” I felt it.

“All right.” Andrew adjusted his baseball cap. “You both know the rules.”

“Just make sure she doesn't cheat,” Alyssa said.

“Make sure
she
doesn't,” I said.

“I know, I know.” Andrew already seemed bored. “So I guess, on your mark—”

I rubbed my thumb over the ball in my hand as Alyssa and I both turned to face the garage.

“Get set.”

Peter said, “Good luck, Julia,” and I felt like I was the only one who heard it.

“Go!”

Alyssa and I both threw against the garage and caught, then did twosies with the bounce inside the line, and caught. After that, we both moved away from the garage and into the street for threesies, and I started to get distracted by things people were saying. Like, “How many moves are there?” and “What's the prize?” To block them out I started playing
Aquarium
in my head and went on to foursies.

The first time I made it through the song, I was finishing up fivesies. Somehow the rhythm of the music in my head and the counting of notes and bars all worked to help the count of Russia. I stopped to see Alyssa already on sixies, and I started the song in my head again and started sixies, too. I'd been thinking that dropping the ball was my worst enemy, but if Alyssa finished faster, I'd still lose, even with a perfect game.

“Stop humming,” Alyssa said a few seconds later.

I hadn't even realized I'd been doing it. I stopped to wipe some sweat off my rib cage under my shirt, and Peter came over and handed me a bottle of water. I took a swig, smiled, and handed it back.

“You've got this,” he said.

I've got this,
I repeated in my head and got back into the zone and stayed there—bouncing, clapping, throwing, turning, whacking, catching. Like I'd been born knowing how to do it.

It seemed like it took no time at all before Alyssa and I were already at twelvesies. That's when things started to move as if in slow motion. We fell into this rhythm where we were taking turns, and when we were up to nine each, going on ten, Alyssa said, “Taylor slept over last night. That's like the second time in two weeks.”

My ball was in the air, and I felt my balance shift but caught it anyway—ten down, two to go.

She seemed to just be standing there, waiting for me to reply, so I took the chance to throw my eleventh out of twelve. And while the ball was in the air, I thought about people like Laney, how probably there were a lot of them out there, people I'd meet in life and
like
.

I caught it.

And with Alyssa still waiting, I thought about saying maybe the nastiest thing that I could think of, even if it was just flat-out calling her the same thing she'd called me
in the woods that day. But Peter called out, “You're doing great, Julia. Stay focused.”

Right then Alyssa threw her last of twelve—too high. She spun and looked up, squinting into the sun, holding out her hands—too late.

She missed.

The ball bounced to the curb.

Some people moaned. Some people cheered. Taylor turned her head away. But above it all, I heard Alyssa's mother's voice, and I could see her face turn sour-looking when she said, “Losing to a loser makes you a loser, Lyss. Come ON!”

My parents appeared on our porch, and I wanted to wave but didn't want to confuse my muscles by doing anything out of the ordinary, anything non-Russia. I was so grateful they weren't the kind of parents who would drop me off at the house of a neighbor they didn't even know. So grateful that they
were
the kind of parents who at least
told me
not to judge people based on their freckles or hair or weight or coolness, even if I was still coming up short.

“You can do this,”
Mom had said, and the words were echoing inside me when I threw the ball high and did the under-the-leg clapping thing for the twelfth time.

I caught it.

I took a deep breath as a few people clapped and Peter held out the water again. I went to him and took a long draw off it. I felt like I was maybe dying.

“You okay?” Peter asked.

“Yeah. Good.”

“I know you can do this.” He squeezed my shoulder gently.

“Me, too.” I nodded.

“But I'll still hang out with you if you don't,” he said.

“Gee, thanks.”

My first few spins for thirteen made me a little dizzy, and I had to blink a few times to catch my balance.

“Pace yourself,” Peter called out. “I'll let you know if she's really on your tail.”

I did my third and fourth turn and felt good.

My parents came down onto the street when I was on my seventh spinning move, and I realized I actually wanted them there, closer. They clapped and Mom said, “You're doing great, Julia.”

Alyssa's mom said, “Dammit, Alyssa. Hurry up!”

Mom called out, “There's really no need for that kind of language, is there?”

If there was any reply, I didn't hear it.

I was up to my ninth throw when Peter said, “No reason to rush, Julia. But she's up to nines, okay, so just keep going slow and steady.”

“Who's this guy?” Alyssa's mother asked. “Alyssa, HURRY!”

“Julia,” Mom said. “Laney called to wish you good luck.”

“Mom,” I said. “Give me some room, okay?”

She said, “Sorry,” and backed off a bit.

“Who's
Laney
?” It was the first time Alyssa had spoken in at least several minutes. “Your girlfriend?”

I stopped, frozen still, and stared at her.

Exhibit A.

I pictured her small and trapped under a glass and wondered if that was what her life felt like for real.

She stared back.

“Where do you even get this stuff?” I asked.

“What?” Alyssa also stopped her game.

She looked so nasty to me that I couldn't even remember why I'd ever even tried to be her friend, why I'd ever let her make me feel bad or scared. I said, “You just say the most ridiculous stuff sometimes.”

She made her lips pouty and looked around. Then she just made a puffing sound and said, “Whatever, Julie.”

So I puffed, too. “Whatever, Alicia.”

“Alyssa!” her mom called out.

“Mom! Just
shut up
!” Alyssa yelled back and everything got incredibly quiet.