Ghost (Track #1)(26)

“Just drive, please,” I groaned, seeing Sunny smiling away, like nothing was wrong, out of the corner of my eye.





8


WORLD RECORD FOR HAVING THE BEST SECRET


THANKFULLY, IT DIDN’T take too long to get to the Chinese restaurant. After we finished staring at the big orange-and-white fish swimming around in a giant tank in the waiting area, we found out Coach had our seats prearranged. He and Sunny sat on one side of the booth, and me, Lu and Patty sat on the other side. The weird red vinyl seats oinked as we all shuffled in.

“Okay, so you guys, pick anything you want on the menu,” Coach unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. “Anything at all. We’re here to celebrate the newbies.”

I didn’t know how anybody else felt about picking anything on the menu, but I almost flipped out, I was so excited. I mean, I had been eating hospital food almost every day during the week for, I don’t even know how long. I guess, since my dad had been gone. So this was going to be heaven.

We all checked out our menus. Way more than what I usually see when me, Mom, King, and Aunt Sophie order in on the weekends. Me and Mom always get shrimp fried rice, Aunt Sophie gets crab sticks, which I always thought was a weird choice, and King nine times out of ten orders a cheeseburger with two egg rolls. And when the food comes, me and King always throw the fortune cookies at each other and try to whack them to pieces with the chopsticks.

“Is everyone ready to order?” A waitress had come over, pad in hand, to scribble whatever we said.

“I am,” Coach said.

“Me too,” Patty said, closing her menu.

I was ready too. Lu looked like he was still thinking about it, but we figured he’d be ready by the time the waitress got to him.

“I’ll have the shrimp lo mein,” Coach said. “With a Sprite.”

“Sesame chicken,” from Patty. “And to drink, do you have Cherry Coke?”

“Cherry Coke?” Lu bawked. “Who drinks Cherry Coke?”

“I do,” Patty said, holding her hand in front of his face to shut him up.

“Ummm.” The waitress thought about it. “I can put some cherry juice in a regular Coke. How about that?”

“Perfect,” Patty said, smiling.

Lu moved her hand away. “And for you?” The waitress was talking to him now.

“Oh, I’m not ready,” he said, picking up his menu again. “Go ’head, Ghost.”

“I’m gonna have the Peking duck, please. And a lemonade.”

“Peekin’ duck?” Lu, again.

“Not peeking,” Sunny said. “Pe-king. I’ll have that too, please.”

“And to drink?”

“Sparkling water, please.”

“Y’all are the fanciest newbies I ever met,” Coach said. He moved his silverware and chopsticks off his napkin, then put the napkin in his lap.

“Are you ready now?” the waitress asked Lu. Again.

“Yeah, you ready?” Patty repeated, way harder than the super soft-spoken waitress.

“There’s just so many options, but I think I’m just going to have shrimp fried rice,” Lu said.

“Shrimp fried rice?” from Coach.

“After all that, you order shrimp fried rice?” from Patty.

“Good choice,” from Sunny, nice-ing it up as usual.

The waitress disappeared with our menus. That’s when Coach started his boring speech about how proud he was to have us on the team, and how great the season was going to be. He said we all showed promise. Well, that was something I had never heard before. That I was showing promise. Then he started dishing dirt about some of other teammates. Not really dirt. Just funny stuff they’d never tell us. Like how Krystal Speed used to be Krystal “No Speed.” He said she used to run like her feet were made of cement. Now she’s better. He also said Mikey has always been kinda tough. Comes from a military family. Coach said his father makes him salute and everything. Aaron is the oldest of a whole bunch of brothers and sisters. So he’s always annoyed at everybody on the track team but can’t help but take care of everyone, which is why he’s the captain. Right when he was telling us about how Curron Outlaw was the king of the false start last year, our waitress returned to the table with our food. Yes! It was go time. And I was so ready. I had even made up in my mind that no matter how good the food was, I would save some for Ma. I mean, it wasn’t every day we ate duck. Matter fact, we never ate duck. So, yeah. I was definitely going to save her some.

We all put our napkins in our laps like Coach did. And as the lady set the plates in front of us, piled up with Chinese goodness, Coach quickly gathered all our forks and knives. He even snatched our chopsticks.

“Okay, newbies. Here’s the deal,” he said, clenching the utensils. “In order for you to get your silverware back so that you can enjoy this amazing food, you have to tell everybody one thing about yourself that most people don’t know. Something good.”

“Wait. What?” Patty said, looking longingly at her sesame chicken.

I stared at my duck, the smell of it doing all kinds of cartwheels and backflips in my nostrils. Oh, man.

“It’s tradition,” Coach explained. “So, who’s first?”

“Me!” Lu offered, staring at his fried rice like it wasn’t . . . fried rice. “I’m starving, so I’ll go first.”