Camp Confidential 05 - TTYL (11 page)

Read Camp Confidential 05 - TTYL Online

Authors: Melissa J Morgan

luv, nat
From: MarissaRox
To: NatalieNYC
Subject: Re: help . . .
 
Hey, Nat! It’s good to hear from you. Sounds like lots of exciting stuff is happening in your life! How fun to go Rollerblading in Central Park. . . . I’m jealous! I’m up to my ears in homework over here . . .
Here’s what I think is going on with Hannah: She’s afraid you’re growing up faster than she is. If I were in your shoes—I’d have really cute shoes! Just kidding . . . And also, I’d make sure Hannah knows that you aren’t outgrowing her. It sounds like that’s what she’s worried about. Take time to do things with her that don’t involve boys at all. (And I know you already know this, but don’t rush into the boy thing yourself! You’ve got so much time!)
Let me know if I can help any more, hon. Love to hear from you.
Love, Marissa
Alex
> TUESDAY
Alex was in a great mood as she entered the locker room and began changing into her clothes for soccer practice. She’d had a pretty good day at school, and it was really warm and sunny outside. She couldn’t wait for the first day of practice to get underway!
As she slipped her jersey over her head and leaned down to tie her shoes, Alex thought about practice, wondering how it would go. She straightened up and pulled her hair into two pigtails, securing them with two purple elastics that she’d had on her wrist. Then she shoved her school clothes into her locker, slammed it shut, and locked it.
As she walked through the locker room to the door that led to the practice field, she passed a group of four older girls. One of them, a girl named Cindy who had short blond hair, snickered as Alex walked by. “Nice hair,” she said.
Alex whipped around, wanting to fire back a retort, but the confident, mean looks on the faces of Cindy and her friends stopped her. The older girls laughed again as Alex slunk out the door red-faced.
Outside, she immediately pulled the elastics out of her hair and pulled it into a long, sleek ponytail. “That was so mean,” she said under her breath. She smoothed down her practice jersey and shook her head to clear it, then walked toward the field.
When she had passed the bleachers, she heard the older girls behind her, snickering and laughing. “Oh look,” Cindy said, “she has grown-up hair now!” Alex wished she was the kind of girl who would respond, but she wasn’t. She just steeled her shoulders and continued to walk onto the field.
There were about ten girls waiting for practice to begin. Alex recognized most of them from tryouts, and walked over to a girl named Trish, who was in her English class. Trish was a tall girl with light brown hair that fell to her shoulders. She’d used barrettes to pull her bangs out of her eyes for practice. “Hey, Trish,” Alex said shyly.
“Hi, Alex,” Trish said. “Could you believe the homework in English today?”
“I know,” Alex replied. “I don’t know how I’m going to get it all done!” Their teacher had assigned the class an essay on someone important in their lives, and it had to be three pages long. To make matters worse, it was due on Thursday, giving Alex only two days to write it. “Who are you going to write about?” she asked Trish.
Trish shrugged. “Maybe my mom? I don’t really know,” she said. “What about you?”
“I have no idea,” Alex said. She sighed. “I can’t believe it’s only the second week of school and I already have so much homework to do.”
“Yeah,” Trish responded. “I guess that’s middle school for you.” They shared a commiserating look.
Just then, Coach Gregorson walked onto the field, followed by Henry and Lisa. Alex could already tell that she was going to look up to Lisa a lot. The older girl seemed so calm and confident. As she walked onto the field, her ponytail swung from side to side, and she was smiling.
Coach blew on her whistle. “All right, team,” she said. “We’re going to start warming up now. Please stretch out, and then we’ll get moving.”
Alex and Trish sat down on the field and stretched out their legs. As Alex reached for her toes, Trish whispered, “Are you going to get to start, do you think? In the games?”
Alex whispered back, “No. I don’t think so.” She looked over at Trish. “What about you?”
“They said I could if I learn some stuff,” Trish confided.
“Me too,” Alex said. She switched legs, stretching her left leg out and reaching toward it with her arms.
“Okay,” Coach Gregorson said. “Let’s start with some running. Henry, please go stand midfield,” she said, pointing. “Everyone, when I blow my whistle, run to Henry, and then run back, five times.”
Alex stood up next to Trish and shook out her arms, jogging in place for a moment. When the coach’s whistle blew, she took off toward Henry, running fast enough to keep up with the group but not so fast that she’d lose too much energy. As she ran, sweat began to form on her forehead. She pulled ahead of Trish after the first lap, and heard Henry call, “Nice pace, Alex!”
After the five laps, Lisa had brought out a big bag of balls that she handed out to the group. “Okay,” she said. “Everybody, please pair up, and let’s practice some passes.”
Alex looked at Trish, who nodded at her happily. Lisa threw Trish a ball, and she and Alex walked a few paces away to begin kicking the ball back and forth to each other.
As Alex ran around, returning the ball to Trish every time, her worries about not being able to play in the games started to dissipate. She didn’t notice Cindy and one of her friends watching her, and so when she missed one of the kicks Trish had passed to her, she thought nothing of it. That is, until Cindy laughed. “Oops!” Alex said with a forced laugh, trying to make light of the situation.
“Oh, she’ll never get to play,” Cindy said to her friend, just loud enough for both Alex and Trish to hear.
“Ignore them,” Trish said.
But Alex’s feelings had already been hurt badly enough in the locker room; having Cindy witness her making a mistake was too much to bear. She could feel the tears forming in her eyes.
“Uh-oh,” Cindy’s friend said loudly. “She’s totally going to cry.”
Cindy laughed. “Oh man. If she cries about missing a pass, what’s she going to do when we’re actually playing?” she said. Then she snorted. “Oh. Right. She’s not going to get to play.”
Alex looked furtively for the coach, but Coach Gregorson was on the other side of the field, giving pointers to another set of girls. Still laughing, Cindy and her friend moved away from Alex and Trish.
The rest of practice was okay—they did a few more exercises with the balls, and then were split up into two teams for a scrimmage. Alex didn’t score, but she did feel like she was learning a lot. She couldn’t shake the memory of Cindy teasing her, though. For the first time in her entire life, Alex wanted to quit soccer—what was the point if she wasn’t going to get to play, and if her teammates were going to be so unfriendly?
Alex had been playing soccer for a long time. At her elementary school, she’d been close friends with all of the girls on her team. So it was strange to be on a team where not only did she not know anyone else, but some girls were mean to her. She was used to a supportive, fun team . . . this was totally different.
Alex and Trish walked to the locker room together after practice. “Try not to get too upset about her,” Trish said quietly. “She’s just stupid.”
Alex sighed. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “But it still stinks, getting made fun of.”
They reached the school building and Trish pulled the heavy door open. “Just try not to worry, Alex,” she said. “And just don’t listen to her.”
“Okay,” Alex said. “I’ll try not to let her bother me.”
To: BrynnWins
From: SoccerLover
Subject: Soccer Team
 
Hey, Brynn—
How are you? It’s been so long since we talked! I hope school is going well for you—middle school is way different for me. I made the soccer team . . . barely . . . and even though the coach said I wouldn’t get to play much this year, I was really excited to be on the team and to learn enough to be able to play next year.
There’s one bad thing, though: this girl Cindy. She and her friends were laughing at me before practice, and I thought maybe I was being paranoid. But then she called me a crybaby while we were practicing. And in the locker room after practice, while I was getting dressed, I heard her say my name. I don’t know what she was saying, because she was talking quietly. But it really bothered me. It sounded like she was planning to do something mean. I hope I’m wrong about this.
Other than that, school is okay, I guess. What’s up with you? Hope to hear from you soon!
Love,
Alex
To: SoccerLover
From: BrynnWins
Re: Soccer Team
 
Alex, I am really mad at that girl for making fun of you. I’m sure you’re just being paranoid, though. Who would do something really mean just for the sake of it? And if it’s really bad you should talk to your coach or something.
Love you. Hope you’re feeling better.
B.
chapter
EVEN
grace
> WEDNESDAY
Grace sat down at a chair near the front row of her English classroom and slid her books onto the desk. She smiled sweetly at the girl next to her and opened her pencil case, taking out one freshly sharpened yellow pencil. The girl next to her, Cate, leaned over. “Pop quiz today,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?” Grace whispered back.
“Yep. My sister has Roslyn first period, and she told me.”
“Thanks,” Grace said, biting her lip nervously.
She tried to act confident, but the truth was, she was terrified. Quizzes were hard enough when she was prepared for them!
The bell rang, and Mr. Roslyn walked into the room, shutting the door behind him. As it shut with a loud crack, he strolled toward his desk and picked up a stack of stapled papers. He gave a few to each person who sat in the front row, telling them to pass the quizzes back.
He coughed, and then said, “Okay, class, as I hinted yesterday, here’s a quiz about
Hatchet
. Please close your books, take out a pencil, and we’ll start when everyone has the quiz.” Mr. Roslyn crossed his arms and waited for everyone to prepare for the quiz. Grace watched as he looked around the room. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying desperately to calm herself, and opened them as Mr. Roslyn said, “All right. Now that you’re all ready, let’s begin.”
As she scanned the test, Grace thought she knew the answers to some of the questions for sure, and she was pretty confident about some of the others, but she wasn’t positive about any of them.
It’s okay
, Grace thought.
I can do this
.
She answered the first couple of questions easily, but then got stuck on an essay question about something that had happened at the beginning of the book. Tapping her pencil against her thigh nervously, Grace tried to remember the answer. After a few minutes of thinking, she gave up, hoping to have time to come back to the question after finishing the rest of the test.
By the time the bell rang, signaling the beginning of lunch, Grace reluctantly brought her quiz to Mr. Roslyn’s desk, convinced she’d failed it entirely.

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