Overtime (8 page)

“See you there,” Charlie said.

Matt and Zachary left.

“Let’s keep a lookout,” Scott said to Nick. “And if
you fall over, just do like the ninjas and float on the air and land with bended knees. After you hit the ground, hold one arm high and one low.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Nick said. “But I’m not quite clear on how you do it. Can you show me?”

They went over to the edge. Charlie had the feeling Alexandra had only been messing with him, as usual. But it made him feel uncomfortable. Was there some truth to what she said? Why had he chosen the girls to go down first?

“Do you guys have your ball hockey teams set up?” Julia said suddenly.

“Not really,” Charlie said. “Have you guys committed to a team?”

“Not really,” Julia said.

“We should organize things,” Charlie said cautiously. “We need three guys and two girls on each team.”

“Give me the names and I’ll enter you right now,” Dalton said. He pulled out his phone and began poking at the screen.

“Why do we need three boys and two girls?” Alexandra said. “Why not the other way around?”

Charlie wished he could take Scott’s advice and jump off the roof. “I just assumed, I guess, that we would … have … three boys.”

“Because that would be better?” Alexandra said.

A flash of inspiration came to him. “The problem is there are six guys here. We’d have to have three teams, and …”

Alexandra shrugged. “Makes sense. It’ll be fun. Right, girls?”

“Yup,” Julia said.

“Pudge, what do you think we should … ?” Charlie’s voice trailed off.

“We could keep our line together: you, me and Zachary. And Nick, Scott and Matt. That could work,” Pudge said.

“Why don’t Alex and Rebecca play with Nick, Scott and Matt. Michelle and I will play with you guys,” Julia said. Dalton began entering the names.

“What about Trisha and Emily?” Charlie said. “They can play.”

All three girls glared at him. Wrong thing to say, Joyce, he realized.

“They’re out,” Scott announced. “Next group.”

The three girls had their arms crossed.

“Are you boys ready?” Charlie said.

Nick and Scott stood up.

“If we die trying to escape we might be late to the Hill,” Scott said. He reached for the door handle. “Hey, Dalt-Man, you may as well escape with us.”

Dalton looked up from his phone. “Sure. If that suits you.”

“See you, Dalton,” the girls chorused.

“Thanks for the help,” Charlie said to him. “And thanks for letting us in.”

Dalton surveyed the roof. “If it works, it will have been well worth it. I enjoyed myself. I’ve never been up here before. It’s a nice view.”

They climbed down.

Julia leaned forward on her toes. “So are you guys excited about the hockey team?”

“We had a bad game last night,” Charlie said. “But we won our first four, and we have a solid squad. We
picked up some new guys, especially this one defenceman named Spencer. He’s awesome …”

“I didn’t mean the Rebels,” she interrupted. “I meant the Bee-Bees team — the co-ed tournament.”

“Are you playing?” Charlie asked.

“Aren’t you?” She sounded surprised and maybe a bit angry.

“I was thinking about it,” Charlie said.

“What’s there to think about?” Alexandra said. “You were going to play for the Champions Cup team.”

No way could he tell them his friends didn’t want to play co-ed hockey. “I’m probably gonna play. Not sure how the tryouts work …”

They turned to Pudge.

“I’m thinking about it,” he said.

“The sign-up sheet is up already — it came out Friday,” Julia said.

Rebecca had wandered over to the edge. “The boys are out. Why don’t you go next, and we’ll come last.”

Charlie had absolutely no intention of arguing.

“Thanks for the help. This will be epic if it works,” Charlie said.

The girls said goodbye, and Charlie and Pudge climbed down. They waited to hear if the janitor was around, and then made a beeline outside.

“I think my skateboard stuff is at your place,” Charlie said. “I forgot it last time.”

“You forget it every time,” Pudge said, giving Charlie a push.

“I’m waiting for you to clean it,” he joked, pushing him back.

They headed towards Pudge’s house. When they
were about halfway up the street, Charlie held out his hand to Pudge, and they shook.

“We pulled it off,” Charlie said. “That should take care of the leaks. Now we just have to raise a hundred and fifty thousand bucks, and we’re home free.”

“Piece of cake,” Pudge said.

“Speaking of cake …” Charlie rubbed his stomach. “Maybe we should stop by my mom’s café.”

“We have some apple pie left over from dinner last night,” Pudge said.

“Then we’ll go to the café after the Hill.”

“The perfect plan, Major.”

The sky had darkened, and after a sunny morning Charlie feared it might rain again. This had better work, he thought, or it would be a lonely school year. And an hour-long bus ride every day — with Jake.

Brutal.

Kids were heaving major sighs after school as they came down the stairs in groups of two or three and saw the rain. Charlie and his friends sighed louder than most.

“Does it have to rain on all our ball hockey days?” Charlie grumbled.

“Water polo would be a better bet,” Nick said.

“We might consider building an ark,” Scott said. “I hear that worked out well for Noah and his family.”

Matt and Pudge came bounding down the stairs.

“Rain!” they said in unison, and their friends laughed.

“What’re we gonna do?” Pudge said.

“We could head over to the café and have a snackerino,” Scott said, nudging Charlie.

“How about an air hockey tourney?” Zachary said.

Charlie had a table in his basement. “That’s fine. We could all go to my place.”

“Yeah. But we did that yesterday,” Scott said. “And even though I’m obviously the best, Charlie always cheats and wins. Frankly, I’m sick of it.”

“So we’ve decided to stand here and stare at each other?” Zachary said.

“That’s the best idea so far,” Nick said.

Charlie noticed a crowd of students at the end of the hallway around the main bulletin board. “Holmes must have put up another announcement,” he said. “Might as well check it out.”

“This should amuse us for eight or nine seconds,” Scott said.

Alexandra spotted them. “Look at this. The great and mighty Rebels are finally going to sign up.”

Julia and Rebecca were there too, and then Charlie noticed Emily and Trisha off to the side watching intently. The boys exchanged uneasy looks. Charlie and Pudge had not told the others about the conversation on the roof with the girls.

Charlie walked up to the bulletin board. The junior team had nine girls signed up and the senior team had four girls, and neither team had any boys.

“The girls are certainly enthusiastic,” he said.

The girls’ silence made it clear they did not find his joke particularly amusing.

“Seriously, though. We were just talking about it,” he said, thumbing at his friends.

“I forgot to sign up — got busy … and forgot,” Pudge managed.

Alexandra rolled her eyes. “They don’t want to play. I told you,” she said.

“We have lots of time to find guys,” Julia said. “No one has to play. It’s … whatever.” She didn’t look too happy, though.

Nick had a resigned look about him. Zachary was leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets. Scott had a huge grin. He hesitated just slightly, flicked his
eyebrows at his friends, then took a pen resting on the ledge of the bulletin board and signed his name for the junior team. One by one, each of them signed. Charlie went last.

“Ladies. You know you can count on the crew,” Scott said. “We bleed Terrence Falls High blood. As a natural centre, and the obvious choice for captain, probably coach too —”

“What about general manager?” Nick said.

“I figured that goes without saying,” Scott said, without skipping a beat.

Julia laughed. “I didn’t know you were a forward.”

“I didn’t know you played hockey?” Nick said.

“You’re hurting my confidence,” Scott said.

“We have a practice this Thursday after school,” Rebecca said seriously.

“Your captain-coach-general manager will be there,” Scott said.

That garnered a groan.

“I’m glad you decided to play,” Julia said to Charlie.

Trisha and Emily walked away.

“We need to win that money,” he said, flustered.

“We definitely do,” Julia said. She looked down at the floor. “Maybe we should meet to organize the skate-a-thon?”

“Yeah. We should. Definitely,” Charlie said.

“Sounds like you’ve practically got it done,” Alexandra said sarcastically.

“Thanks for the encouragement,” Julia joked.

“I gotta blow this place,” Alexandra said. “See you guys later.”

“I’ll come with you,” Rebecca said.

“I should probably just do my homework,” Zachary said, shooting a glance at the other guys. “I’ll catch you dudes later.”

“Me too,” Matt said.

“I keep hearing about this strange thing called homework,” Scott said to Nick. “Is that a kind of sandwich? I’m starving.”

“It’s more like something you do between meals,” Nick said.

“Okay, we could go to the library and plan things out,” Charlie said to Julia. “We can also get movie night going.”

His friends were grinning from ear to ear.

“See you guys,” he said, and he and Julia walked towards the staircase to the library, Charlie feeling his friends’ eyes on him the whole way.

“You don’t really have to play if you’re too busy,” she said.

“I said I’d play,” he said.

“But you don’t have to. I don’t want you to think I’m pressuring you.”

“I don’t. It’ll be fun — and if we win, that’s a mess of money.”

He hoped she didn’t notice the lack of conviction in his voice. He couldn’t understand exactly why, but for some reason playing with the girls made him uneasy.

Julia stopped at the first step. “I kind of had another idea too … sort of didn’t want to talk about it in front of everyone. I was talking to Dalton earlier and he wondered if Bee-Bees would care that we want to use the prize money from the tournament for the roof. It’s supposed to go for athletic programming.”

“Good question. We should probably find out before the practice.”

She pulled him back from the stairs. “I gave them a call already, and I’m supposed to meet someone at the mall in an hour, and I thought, well, I could use the company … and we could talk about the skate-a-thon and movie night at the same time.” She paused. “That is, if you’re not doing anything …”

Charlie tried his best to keep his voice casual. “Sure, I guess. I don’t have anything going on, and we can figure stuff out: movie night, and the skate-a-thon … and whatever.”

“Awesome. Thanks.”

“Yeah. Sure. No problem.”

They looked at each other.

“We should probably just get going then,” she said.

Both slightly red in the face, they headed out of the school.

* * *

“Hey, they have the new BBs in,” Julia said, pointing at the black yoga pants displayed in the store window. She laughed when she saw his expression. “You should pick up a pair.”

“I assume that’s your zany sense of humour,” Charlie said.

“Okay. We’ll start you off with a sweatshirt.”

They went to the front counter.

“Is Joanne Bettencourt in?” Julia asked the girl behind the counter.

“She’s in the back,” she said. “I’ll buzz her.”

They did not have to wait long. “Are you the young lady that called me about the hockey tournament?”

“Yes, Ms Bettencourt.”

She laughed. “Call me Jo-Jo, please. Everyone does. Now, you said your school might close?”

“We hope not. But the roof needs to be repaired, and if we can’t raise enough money, we will all have to go to different schools in November. So we thought entering your tournament would be a good idea, because it will be fun, but also because of the prize money,” Julia said.

Jo-Jo nodded vigorously the entire time.

“We were wondering if Bee-Bees Boutique would allow us to use the money for our Save-The-Roof fund — assuming we win, of course.”

“I’ll need to call head office,” Jo-Jo said. “We’ve been doing these tournaments to promote sports and healthy living. This is a bit different. I’ll get back to you. I’d like to help.”

“We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t so important,” Julia said.

Jo-Jo laughed. “You’re such a serious girl,” she said. “I like you, and I like that you’re taking the initiative.” She pointed at Charlie. “And who’s your boyfriend?”

Charlie could only imagine how deeply he was blushing. Julia did not seem that bothered.

“This is Charlie. He’s helping with the fundraising, and he’ll be on the team too.”

Jo-Jo took a step back and looked them both over. “Wait here a second.” She went to the back of the store.

Moments later, she came back holding some clothes. “Julia, you simply must have a pair of the new BBs. I got you ones with the red waistband. I thought they’d suit you.”

Julia’s eyes got big. “Thanks, Jo-Jo. That’s so
awesome of you.”

Jo-Jo handed Charlie a blue sweatshirt. “We actually sell men’s clothing too. We’ve come out with a whole new boys and men’s line. Everyone thinks we only sell to girls.”

“Try it,” Julia said to him.

Charlie slipped it on.

“Check it out in the mirror,” Jo-Jo said. “It looks great.”

He had to admit it was a nice-looking sweatshirt. “Thanks. I … needed a new sweatshirt. Thanks.”

“Making people look good is what we do,” Jo-Jo said. “You two take care. I’ll call you when I hear back about the tournament — and blue is a great colour on you, Charlie. We also have some awesome pants and T-shirts. Come back any time.”

They walked out.

“I guess I should go this way,” he said, pointing to the left. “I’m supposed to meet my mom at her café for dinner.”

“So you’ll ask Pudge if he wants to come with us on Thursday after school to check out ice times for the skate-a-thon?” Julia said.