Forgive My Fins

Shannen and I head for the padded wall at the end of the court and slide down to the floor.

“Maybe we’re going outside?” she suggests.

“Usually when we do that,” I say, “one of the coaches is out there waiting.”

But not today. Both of our coaches—the tennis coach, Miss Bailey, who is always ultraperky, and one of the baseball coaches, Coach Pittman, who is the complete opposite of perky—are in the gym, watching us trickle through the doors.

The bell rings and the last stragglers, including Brody, wander into the gym.

Coach Pittman blows his whistle while Miss Bailey claps her hands, shouting, “Circle up, everyone.”

Shannen and I reluctantly get up and move to center court, along with everyone else. I edge us as close to Brody as I can get without making it too obvious.

“Today we are going to start a unit on playground games,” Miss Bailey says excitedly, as if her enthusiasm might be contagious. She ignores the fact that every last one of us groans—I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m groaning because I’m clueless. “For our first game, the rules are simple. Coach Pittman and I will select one of you to be—”

“Freeze tag,” Pittman bellows over Miss Bailey’s instructions. He eyes the crowd for a second before pointing at me and Brody. “Sanderson and Bennett, you’re it.”

Then he blows his whistle and all shellfish breaks out. Kids flee to the four corners of the room.

I’m it? I’m it? What does that mean?

“We’ve got this, Lil,” Brody says.

“Got what?” I look around helplessly. “I don’t even know what we’re doing.”

“You don’t know how to play freeze tag?” he asks, incredulous. When I shake my head, he gives me a quick lesson. “When you touch someone, they’ll freeze. Only someone who’s not it can unfreeze them. If we freeze everyone in class, we’ll win.”

“Oh.” I don’t get it. “Okay.”

Brody apparently sees my continued confusion. “Just try and touch as many people as you can.”

Then he takes off, leaving me standing at center court with still no real clue about this game.

I watch him as he chases after a group of freshman girls who just giggle instead of running away. As he touches each of them, they freeze in place. Another girl, a sophomore I think, runs up and touches them, bringing them back to life. But before they can get away, Brody refreezes the freshmen and catches the sophomore, too.

“Get moving, Sanderson,” Coach Pittman shouts. “Or you’ll get a no effort for the day.”

That gets me running. My grades are bad enough without tanking gym. In a complete lack of strategy, I just run for the nearest bodies. They’re fast, though, and escape to the other side of the gym, using some of Brody’s victims as a shield. But while I’m trying to find a way around—or through—the frozen girls, Brody sneaks up from behind and freezes my prey.

“Nice teamwork, Lil,” he says with a wink. And then he jerks his head to my right. I turn and spot Shannen and the junior girl we hang out with during gym sometimes. I’m starting to get the appeal of the game.

“Don’t move, Shannen,” I say, slowly walking toward them as they back away. “It’ll be painless. I promise.”

“No way.” She starts to turn and run but finds herself face-to-face with Brody, who has circled around lightning fast.

“Sorry, girls.” He grins as he touches each of them on the shoulder. To me, he says, “Let’s get the bunch in the corner.”

We set off after the rest of the class. Somehow, I feel like we’re connecting over more than a game. We’re bonding—a nonmagical but still awesome kind of bond. I never knew gym class could be so great.

Brody catches up with me and Shannen as we leave the gym hall, heading for the science wing (I have earth science and Shannen has AP physics). I still feel kind of flushed from all the exertion of chasing my classmates around the gym when Brody jogs up, throws an arm around my shoulder (my backpack, actually), and says, “We make a good team, Lil.”

I exchange an omigod look with Shannen.

“Yeah,” I say, amazed that I’m able to form words. I mean, Brody is practically hugging me! “A great team.”

He squeezes me to his side, like he would one of his swim-team buddies, but I feel little sparks everywhere our bodies connect. “We should partner up more often. No one else would stand a chance.”

He’s probably forgetting my incident with the jump rope and the bloody noses (plural), but I’m not about to remind him.

“Totally.” I’m trying to play it cool—something I have zero experience with—because I learned my lesson about appearing overeager when I asked him to the dance last week. Look how (not) well that turned out.

As we round the corner for the science hall, I sling my arm around him to complete the buddy-buddy hug we have going. Only, the second I see Quince—or rather, the second he sees us—I know that we don’t look buddy-buddy to him. His fury hits me like an emotional tidal wave. His eyes turn bright as flames, and the muscles in his jaw clench so tight, I think he might be in danger of crushing his teeth. I hope he has a good dentist.

“Lily,” he grinds out without loosening his jaw. He said my name, but his burning eyes are trained on Brody. “Bennett.”

It might have been a greeting, but there are two signs that Quince is issuing a warning. First, he got Brody’s last name right. Second, he didn’t so much say the name as growl it.