Post by silent.lullaby on Dec 24, 2009 0:32:36 GMT -5
//We Run This Town//Chapter 008//Uncoordinated
In the change rooms I felt awkward. I suppose everyone feels that way, all the self-conscious flaws you think you have right there for your same sex classmates to see. Though really, they aren’t paying any attention to you, they are just as self-conscious and trying to change as fast as possible.
Once in my track pants and t-shirt I left and stepped into the gym. Lucia took a few more minutes before joining me as she was looping her long hair around and around before fastening it in a bun with a colourful beaded elastic. “What do you think our first unit will be?”
I thought for a moment. “Soccer,” I replied. They usually co-ordinated the gym class with the current team sport of that gender, so those team players would get extra practice. I sighed, “I hate soccer.”
“Really? I thought Italians were suppose to be good at soccer,” I turned to see the Reid twins. One sneering, the one I took to be Lexie nearly immediately, and Kara was tugging on her sister’s sleeve whispering.
“It’s okay for you to think that,” I responded with the sweetest voice I could muster. “Since your IQ is so low, I’d have to forgive it.” Lucia snickered and our teacher came in before Lexie could respond.
“Good day girls, my name is Miss Gilbert and I will be your gym teacher this semester.” Miss Gilbert introduced herself. “I look forward to getting to know you all, and if you make it onto this years soccer team, I look forward to coaching you as well.” She looked around, everyone kept quiet and she continued. “First unit will be soccer, if someone will help me get the ribbons and balls we’ll be heading out to the field.”
A couple of girls followed her into the storage room before coming out empty handed. “The boys group must already have them,” Miss Gilbert said mostly to herself. “Lets get outside.”
We exited the school, the air still quite warm, “two warm up laps around the track and I’ll find out what happened to our equipment.”
Lucia and I smiled at each other while most of the girls groaned. Both of us were track runners and had no trouble with going around the large oval twice, we did it faster and was less winded at the end of it. Miss Gilbert came back over to us, “alright girls, here is what’s going on.” She waited until the talking stopped before she continued. “Last year they got rid of a lot of our equipment since it was getting old and a lot of it was past it’s date of replacement. We should have received our soccer balls before the beginning of the semester, but since we haven’t we’re going to be teaming up with Mr Doors’s boys and playing no contact football.”
Some of the girls looked excited, “aww, no contact?” One of them asked and a few other’s laughed.
“No, no contact,” Miss Gilbert responded after snickering a little herself.
“Great,” I muttered, “if playing football wasn’t bad enough, we have to play it with the boys.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Lucia asked with a little shrug of her shoulders, “I mean, just run back and forth, and keep hidden behind someone of the opposite team, surely no one will pass to you.”
“They don’t know me like you do.”
“True, but I’m sure it won’t take long for them to realize when it comes to sports, you have no co-ordination.”
I sighed, “I’m going to be made a fool of, I just know it.” It seemed Lucia had nothing encouraging to say so she kept her mouth shut as Miss Gilbert lead us over to where Mr Doors and the male P.E group stood.
The males on one side and the females on the other, Miss Gilbert and Mr Doors talked among themselves as they decided how they were going to play. Both young, good looking, athletic teachers talking and looked like they were flirting a little as well. When they came back Mr Doors spoke, “alright, we’re going to pick two people to be captains, the captains will then take turns picking players alternating between male and female till the girls run out.” Our female class was smaller by around five people.
“Since the males already have larger numbers, and since we need captains that know the game so they can help any that don’t, we’ve decided that two players from the tryouts will be captains.” Doors looked at his clipboard before reading out, “Gavin Burke will be captain for the red team.” Miss Gilbert gave him the handful of red ribbons. “And Brian Wetherill will be captain for the yellow team.” Miss Gilbert gave Brian a handful of yellow Ribbons.
“Burke, call it,” Miss Gilbert said holding up a shiny quarter.
“Heads.”
“You loose,” Miss Gilbert says looking at the flipped coin, “Wetherill, you get first draft, picking girls first.”
Brian studied the girls, “Lexie.” Lexie shoulder bumped me as she passed from behind and joined her line tucking her yellow tag into her back pocket.
Gavin looked around and I couldn’t help but look at Lucia, “we’re going to be the last ones picked.”
“Oh definitely. Do you know that Brian’s parents had a deal that went south with Zarah?” I shook my head, I hadn’t heard that at all. Lucia nodded, “I’ll tell you later, but trust me, Brian has more reason to hate us than Gavin does.”
I sighed, whoever said rich kids weren’t hated was either stupid or sadly mistaken. Most at least like us for our money, for our amazing parties. Nope, not us.
“Kara,” Gavin called and Kara moved carefully through the girls.
Brian quickly called Riley, and Gavin called Darren. They continued calling until Lucia and I were the last ones there. Brian sighed knowing he needed to take one of us. “Lucia.” She looked at me and shrugged.
If glares could kill, Darren’s would have murdered me, and resurrected me so he could kill me again. Gavin sighed and held out a red ribbon for me which I took and tucked into the back of my track pants.
“Alright, someone getting your ribbon is like a tackle. You’re done when someone gets it, and if you have the ball at the time your run is done.” Mr Doors spoke loudly so no one would miss it.
“I hate gym class,” I turned to see the girl next to me was slightly shorter, her hair was left down in a copper coloured choppy style to her shoulders messy bangs thrown out of her brown eyes sloppily. “Running, sweating,” she wrinkled her nose before looking up at me, “I’m October Rockwell.”
“Lilianna Lombardi,” I responded and I waited for the judging to begin.
She just looked at me and nodded, “you don’t look like you’re to excited to be in this class either.”
“I’m not very... co-ordinated.”
October nodded her choppy bangs falling over her eyes, “I know what you mean. Me, it’s more of I don’t like sports, I dwell in mediocracy, I mean, I can play the sport, just not well. Especially to the standards of guys. I mean some chicks can play with the dudes, I’m not one of them. I can hardly stand my own against other chikas.” I simply nodded attentively.
“Alright go to your end of the field, Captains make sure everyone knows what they are doing before the game starts.” Mr Doors said and the everyone followed their team leader.
“You didn’t go here last year did you?” October asked me. Apparently she didn’t know what Lombardi meant here. I shook my head. “Didn’t think so, after two years, I’ve made a point to try to know as many people as I can. I mean, you never know when you are going to need a genius in calculus or someone to vote you valedictorian.”
“Isn’t it early to be thinking about that?” I asked.
October shook her head, “best to get as many connections now and make them stronger as the years go by. Friends do friends favours. More friends you have, the better luck you’ll have finding someone who can help you out when the time comes.” I had a private smile, I was possibly the most powerful friend you could have. Given, I was a secretive one to those outside the ‘family business.’
Gavin stopped and everyone circled around him waiting for his instructions. He started with the guys telling them what positions they should take. “Which of you is the fastest?” Gavin asked to us girls, seven of us on his team we all looked to each other and Gavin sighed, “any of you run track?” I raised my hand slightly and none of the other girls did. “Okay, you run as fast as you can forward and Darren will throw the ball to you, once you have it run to the end zone as fast as you can.”
“Ummm... you said who can run the fastest, that may or may not be me, but I can’t catch.”
Some of the guys snickered. “Don’t worry about it,” Gavin insisted. “Darren never misses just keep your arms open and it’ll land in your arms.” I swallowed, somehow I doubted it would just fall lightly as if on the wings of a dove and land gently into my arms. I just nodded further argument on the matter would just make me look like a fool.
Everyone started taking their positions and I wasn’t entirely sure where to stand Gavin grabbed my shoulders and guided me into place before leaving me there with out a word. All the guys hunched over and the girls kind of looked at each other for a minute before bending over too. Some of the guys behind wolf whistled, some girls giggled.
The whistle went, our team hiked the ball back to Darren, and then he looked at me, “run would you!” He yelled and I took off running some passing went off and I turned as someone went for my ribbon and ran backwards before stopping as I seen the ball coming. Despite better judgement I closed my eyes, like it would stop from anything bad to happen. I felt the ball hit my chest hard enough to knock the wind from me for a moment and it dropped into my arms and I clutched it to my chest as I turned back and took off running.
I felt the ribbon be taken from the back of my pants and turned to see Lexie with grin. She waved it in my face and I snatched it away from her. Miss Gilbert took the ball from me and everyone got back into position on the new line, much closer to our end zone.
It was hiked back, Darren caught it and I took off running after reaching the end I turned around and he threw it, again I closed my eyes and braced myself for it. “DUCK!” I instinctively covered my head and ducked down. As I heard snickering I opened one eye and seen the other team laughing. Brian had been the one to yell and startle me so.
“Don’t close you eyes,” Gavin said to me as I passed him. “How can you catch it when you can’t see it.”
“I didn’t want to be in this position to begin with,” I grumbled back.
I missed the next two and we ended up back in the centre, this time it was the other teams turn. Lexie jumped and caught the ball Brian threw at her and I took off running after her, but didn’t get to her before she crossed the end and did a back flip to show off. “You didn’t really think you were going to catch me? Did you?” She asked as she passed me slamming into my shoulder as she passed.
“Bitch,” I muttered before getting back into position.
Lexie ran past me again and she looked back to see me and stopped short I ran into her and took her down. I rolled off her and started to get up. “What the hell?” Lexie yelled making a scene, “this isn’t tackle football! Guess it’s just the violent Lombardi blood.”
“Lil,” Lucia grabbed my arm as I reared back to wail Lexie. “Don’t prove her right.” Lucia whispered to me, “we know she’s a bee witch.”
“You? What was that?” Miss Gilbert asked me. “This is no-contact!”
“She stopped short so I would run into her,” I defended myself.
“Yeah, right,” Lexie responded sarcastically. “Why would I do that, I ended up getting crushed by you.”
I ground my teeth together and Lucia pulled my hand down from a fighting stance. “What’s your name?” Miss Gilbert asked.
“Lilianna Lombardi,” I responded.
“Lombardi...” Miss Gilbert looked like she was trying to place where she’d heard the name before.
“Like mafia Lombardi,” Lexie told her. “Like her daddy and uncle just managed to get themselves out of prison. Probably because all the witnesses, and evidence just managed to disappear.” Lexie waved her fingers like the disappearances was a magic act, her fingers ended up two fingers pointed toward me like a gun. “Disappeared,” she said again.
“You better watch it.” I got into her face and Miss Gilbert pushed between us.
“You going to make me disappear too? Daughter of an law officer, the daughter of the man working your families case? Is that really the smart thing to do Lombardi?”
“Both of you cut it out!” Miss Gilbert shouted. Everyone had circled around waiting for a cat fight to begin. “Lets get back to the game, and none of this contact stuff, got it?”
The bell went and everyone started heading to the school. I waited outside with Lucia for an extra five minutes to cool off. “Just school day one and I’m already ready to kill her.”
Lucia frowned, “come on, lets get showered before the busses leave with out us.”