Sunny(6)

So me and Aurelia don’t mess with it. Just leave it alone and pretend it’s our only audience member. Aurelia calls it Harry Chairy. I call it Chair. Like Cher. You know who that is, Diary? Well, if you don’t, just know she makes pretty good dance music.

And Aurelia makes pretty good dance moves. Out of anything. She can make them out of ballet. I know you know what ballet is, but just in case you don’t, it’s tip-top, tiptoe, total body control. Sounds like ocean. Like rolling waves. She also does tap, but never brings her shoes with her because you can’t hear the tappity-tapping on carpet either. She does modern dance, which is like . . . I don’t know. It doesn’t really feel all that modern. Not to me. But I guess it’s more like theater dance. Like drama. Kind of stuff they do in the West Side Story movie. Snap, snap. And, my favorite, hip-hop. Now this is what I’m talking about. This is what I’ve been talking about, what I meant when I said every move has a sound. A tick or a boom, or something. Like a tickboom. Or a tick-tickboom. Or, in this case:

Hit and hit and ugh and ooooh, clap and aye, and owwww, whoosh

Hit and hit and ugh and ooooh, clap and aye, and owwww, whoosh

to go with these moves:

Shrug and shrug and kick and slide back, clap and dab and body roll, spin

Shrug and shrug and kick and slide back, clap and dab and body roll, spin

And Aurelia always tells me to end . . . with attitude. Which basically always seems to be me ending with a big cheese on my face. So instead of ending like what! I always end like wow! But Aurelia don’t mind.





Dear Diary,

Aurelia knew that I was going to have to confront Coach at practice about what happened Saturday at the meet, so she asked me if I was nervous when we pulled up to the park. I had basically been quiet after the dancing, and on the whole ride to practice. I told her I was nervous, a little. But really, I was nervous . . . a lot. And then she asked me if I was sure I wanted to even be there. Like, if Darryl wasn’t so hard on me about running, would I still want to be on the team at all? Diary, she was talking to me about how I did what I said I was going to do, and when I was going to do it, so that I didn’t feel like I was disrespecting my mom by quitting on the day she died or on the day she gave birth to me, and I could hear everything Aurelia was saying—it wasn’t going all womp womp or nothing like that—but at the same time I was staring out at the track. Watched for a second as Lu and Ghost slapped hands. Patty and Aaron laughed at something. Brit-Brat and Deja were talking to Whit. And Coach was sitting on the bench on the side with his phone to his ear. And . . . I don’t know. Something about seeing everybody just made me feel like I belonged. I know that’s a little cheesy. But it’s true. So I told Aurelia that I would. That I wanted to be there, on this team, with these people. And then I got out of the car. And suddenly I didn’t feel so good. From cheesy to queasy . . . easy.

The walk from the car to the track was a long one. And all I could think about was, what was my plan? In my mind there was an outline: I. OPTION 1: APPROACH COACH (and avoid rhyming)

A. Sit down next to him and tie your shoes and say “Fancy seeing you here.”

B. Approach him like West Side Story, snap, snap, snap, snap.

C. Walk straight up to him and slap him in the face so he’ll be forced to talk about something else.

II. OPTION 2: DON’T APPROACH COACH

A. Run directly onto the track.

B. Turn around and walk back to the car before Aurelia leaves.

C. Finally try to activate my teleportation powers.

And a chart:





TELL COACH HOW YOU FEEL


GO HOME AND MAKE MORE PANCAKES

DON’T TELL COACH HOW YOU FEEL




And also a graph:

ME, IF I TALK TO COACH

BOOMTICK (silver lining) ME, IF I DON’T TALK TO COACH




Figured it was better to be safe than sorry. But still didn’t think to pack a barf bag, and the pancakes I had this morning had turned back into batter. A bitter batter, pitter-pattering up my throat.





Dear Diary, Don’t worry. I didn’t puke. But I wanted to when Coach called my name and waved me over, and then yelled it louder and told me to hustle up, and that’s when I wanted to puke myself out of myself, like blooepp and just lay there on the ground, a slimy brown ooze.

Aaron was leading the stretches in that way-too-serious way he does, and Lu was mimicking him in that way-too-silly way he does, and Ghost and Patty were trying not to laugh, and Coach barked at them and told them he had enough going on and not to make it a long week. And I wished I was with them trying not to laugh, but I was too busy trying to imagine ways to pull the cat out of my mouth.

I was also wondering if maybe I was Coach’s enough going on.

Next thing I knew, Coach was standing in front of me, telling me to pick my head up and look at him, and asking me what happened on Saturday. He said at first he thought I caught a cramp or something, but then said he saw me smiling and knew it couldn’t have been a cramp, unless it was a cramp in the mind. I told him I didn’t know how to explain it.

He said, Try.

I said, I don’t know how to say it.

He said, Try harder.

And I just stood there as all the thoughts went boing boing in my brain. Thoughts about how maybe I could just lie. But I’m not a liar. But I could just tell him I stopped running because I wanted to give everybody else from other teams a chance to feel what it feels like to win—a half lie has to be better than a whole lie, right?—and that it would even add some extra spice to it for the crowd, and then the next week I would be back to winning, except I didn’t want to actually run anymore, so even just the thought of saying that made me feel jumpy. But still, I didn’t want to say . . . everything.