Ghost (Track #1)(29)

9


WORLD RECORD FOR CLEANING THE DIRTIEST CAR


ONE TIME IN gym class we had to do this thing for warm-up where Mr. Perham made us form two lines, facing each other. Everybody had to reach out and hold the hands of the person standing in front of them. For me, that person was, of course, stupid Brandon Simmons. His hands felt slimy, as if he had just blown his nose into his palms, which he probably did just to be a jerk. After we all were holding hands, Mr. Perham stood in the front of the line with his back to us.

“This is called a trust fall,” he said. “I’m gonna let myself fall backward, and I’m trusting you all are going to catch me.”

“Like stage diving?” Greg Dodson said.

Mr. Perham turned around. “Pretty much.”

For someone about to be all trusting, he looked kinda worried. Shoot, I was worried for him. I mean, I wouldn’t trust somebody like Brandon to catch nobody other than himself or Monique. But Perham turned back around, took a deep breath, and leaned back.

That’s basically what the whole “you gotta tell a secret to eat” thing Coach pulled on us was all about. It was like a trust fall with words. A warm-up to being Defenders. By the end of the dinner, it seemed like we were all connected in some strange way that none of us had imagined, and it stayed that way as we came to practice on Monday.

“Awwww,” Aaron teased, as me, Lu, Patty, and Sunny hung around talking to each other before the stretch. Coach and Whit were on the side of the track, having an extra-long conversation with Chris Myers’s father. “Look at the newbies. All of a sudden y’all besties, huh? Let me guess, Patty told y’all a secret about how she got a crush on Curron.” Curron grinned as the other players laughed.

“Ain’t nobody got a crush on Curron!” Patty replied.

“Dang, Curron. You heard that?” Freddy chimed in, yanking the drawstring on his shorts.

“Yeah, I heard her. What’s wrong with me, Patty?” Curron asked, fighting back his embarrassment.

“Sorry, Curron,” Patty started. “But I don’t like boys who jump the gun.”

Everybody laughed and Krystal Speed gave Patty a five, then fired off a few finger guns at Curron. “Pyewn! Pyewn!”

“What you laughing at, Krystal No Speed? When’s the last time you won a race?” Curron fired back.

“The last time I seen your mama,” Krystal said. “Ain’t never ran so fast, ’cause I ain’t never seen something so ugggly.”

“Hey, hey, no need to bring anybody’s mom into this,” Sunny chimed in, struggling to get his voice to cut through the oohs.

“Oh yeah?” Curron was now feeling big. Being laughed at was getting the best of him. “How ’bout we talk about yours, newbie?”

“That’s enough, Curron.” Aaron, who started this whole mess, finally decided to step in and fix it. But it was too late.

“Nah, let’s talk about Sunny’s mother,” Curron insisted, now sizing Sunny up. We all knew he was just joking and that whatever zing he was gonna attempt was just gonna be silly, but still, this was Sunny. His mother wasn’t even alive, and I knew that. And to me, that fact made those jokes off-limits. I also knew Sunny wasn’t the kinda guy to stand up for himself. So I did.

“Let’s not.” I stepped in front of Sunny and looked cold into Curron’s eyes.

Curron faced me, trying to hold his square, but I could tell instantly that he didn’t want what I had for him. “Y’all see this kid?” he said, turning around to the other vets. Patty and Aaron came up alongside me, joining me in protecting our friend.

“Yeah, we see him, and since you a cupcake, we suggest you leave him alone,” Aaron said, shutting Curron down.

Then a hand clap. Slow. One. Then another. Then another. Coach was standing with Whit, clapping. “That was fantastic,” he said. “Wasn’t it, Whit?”

“I thought so,” Whit replied, folding her arms across her chest.

“So many tough guys and girls on this team—” Coach stopped himself. “Wait, did I just call y’all a . . . team?” He started toward us. “That’s what this is, right? Right?”

“Yes, Coach,” Aaron said, instantly slipping back into his role as Coach’s pet.

“Oh, so only Aaron knows we’re a team?”

“We’re a team, Coach.”

“Yeah, Coach. We’re a team.”

“We’re a team.”

“So then act like it. You understand me? Each and every one of you.” He waved a finger past each of our faces. “Act like it! Matter fact, learn from the newbies. Defend each other. They ain’t your opponents. They’re your new family. And as y’all can see, they mean business.” I looked at Patty, Lu, and Sunny and tried hard to totally cheese. Then I looked at Curron and nodded as Coach commanded, “Now let’s stretch it out. Toe touches. Everybody down.”

After stretching and warm-up, the sprinters spent the rest of the practice doing fartleks, which sounds like fart licks. Funniest name ever. Fart . . . lick. HA! But it has nothing to do with licking farts. It just means you run three minutes at 80 percent speed, and one minute full-out. Sounds easy, right? Try doing ten of them. It’s harder than it sounds. Way harder. Trust me.