Chapter 5
Surla sat between rows of lockers. The smell of too much perfume and hair spray made her feel like gagging. She had found her way to P.E. and the oversized T-shirt and sweat pants, left in Cathy’s locker, felt very comfortable.
Chrissy was pulling her short hair into a small ponytail in front a huge mirror hanging on a wall. Her eyes glanced at Surla’s, then looked again and smiled. Chrissy is way more nice than her friends.
“Girls! Let’s go! Time to hit the tennis courts!” a manly-looking lady with a whistle hanging around her neck, yelled.
As Surla headed out the door, Chrissy came alongside her. “Hi, Cathy,” she said.
“Hi,” she said back, with slight amazement that Chrissy would regard her.
“You look really nice today. You should dress like this every day.”
“Thanks,” Surla responded as they headed to the courts, where all the students, guys and girls, were asked to sit and form a large circle. The two teachers, Mrs. Brown (the manly lady) and Mr. Townshend (the manly man), stood in the center.
“Okay, everyone! Today is the first day of practicing tennis,” Mrs. Brown began. “Tennis is a pretty simple game, but it takes a lot of sweat and stamina. Although it may seem so, it’s not easy to run back and forth from one side of your court to the other trying to hit a little ball.”
Mr. Townshend interjected, “Yes, and in a few minutes we will discuss the rules of the game, but first we need everyone to partner up with someone. So, hurry up and get with someone!”
Surla looked around at all of the students finding their friends. Feeling a bit uneasy, she looked at Chrissy, who she noticed didn’t have a partner also.
“We’ll be partners, I guess.” Chrissy stretched her arms above her head.
Thank goodness. Surla smiled.
“All right, I see everyone has found their teammate, so sit close to each other so we know for sure who you’re with,” Mrs. Brown ordered. “And we’ll go around and pick the people you’re up against. And it looks like it will be an even boys against girls.”
Of course all the boys were happy with that conclusion, already eyeing the girls they wanted to compete with. Surla and Chrissy listened to Mr. Townshend calling off names of who would be against who. “Steve Campbell and Byron Thompson are with Sophia Sanchez and Crystal Bradley.” The teams stood up and grabbed rackets and a ball from a sports rack.
“Mr. Townshend!” Sophia whined with a cute accent. “Why did you put me with Byron? You know we don’t get along at all.”
“Well then, this will also be a lesson in learning to get along with others who are annoying,” he said with a laugh, teasing Byron, then continued on, “Nick Costa and Patrick McNeal are up against Suzy Peters and Sara Cronopolous.”
Sara ran over to Nick and gave him a high five. “All right! We’re on the same court.” Then they headed out with their equipment.
The pairing up of teams went on and on until Surla became anxious. “The only guys left,” Chrissy whispered, “are Jason Renshaw with Paul Hadlock and Travis Simmons with Craig Nelson.”
“Craig Nelson!” Surla said more excitedly than she meant to.
“Yeah, why?” Chrissy laughed. “Do you like him or something?”
Surla felt stupid for sounding so eager. “No, I don’t.” She then thought she really shouldn’t lie about Cathy. “Well, yes, I guess I do.”
“Really?!” Her big eyes became bigger with interest. “You know,” she lowered her voice more, “Tiffany has had the hugest crush on him for two years in a row. Can you believe it? But don’t tell anyone I told you.”
“Wow… okay.” Surla thought about how the situation had been the same with Cathy.
“I know. Personally I don’t like any of the guys here. I guess growing up with them all made it unexciting for me, but maybe if some really good-looking new guy came to school….” Chrissy stopped and looked at the four guys sitting across from them. “Cathy,” she said in an enthusiastic whisper, “Craig is staring straight at you!”
“Really?” Surla casually glanced over to him and their eyes met instantly. This could be my first opportunity to flirt. Surla smiled as cute as possible, tilting her head. Craig smiled back and gave her a wink.
“Oh my gosh. Did you just see what he did? He winked at you!” Chrissy looked again to Craig and then back to Surla. “I won’t tell Tiffany about this one.”
“Tiffany?” Surla turned to her. “Why? What can she do about it?”
“Oh, trust me, she can do a lot.” Her eyebrows raised. “I’ve known her practically my whole life.”
“You have known her almost all your life?” Surla felt sorry for her.
“Oh yeah. She just lives a few houses down from me.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure. What is it?”
“Why do you hang out with her?”
“Why do I hang out with her?” she said as if the answer was obvious. “Like I said, I’ve known her practically all of my sixteen years. We used to play Barbie when I was just four. She’s my friend, so why wouldn’t I want to hang out with her.”
At that comment, Surla decided not to say another word about the topic, seeing as how it would offend Chrissy.
The teacher announced, “Jason Renshaw and Paul Hadlock go with Alana Gustafson and Taniesha Collins.”
Surla knew what that meant. Yes! I’m with Craig. What a great coincidence.
“The rest of you know who you’re with,” Mr. Townshend said as they stood and picked out rackets. Surla reached for the green, fuzzy ball, which appealed to her catty interests.
“Hey, what’s your name?” Craig asked Surla as they all headed to a court.
Oh my gosh, Surla thought in amazement, he doesn’t recognize Cathy!
“This is Caaathy. Can you say Cathy?” Chrissy teased.
“Cathy?” he said again. “No way! Um, what’s her last name? Philbert!”
“No, it’s Phillips,” Surla said.
“Oh, wow.” His blue eyes were glued to staring at her for a few more seconds. “Hey, um, I’m sorry I didn’t give you a ride home last Friday. My car was pretty full.”
“Don’t worry about it.” They went to their separate sides of the court. “I wouldn’t want to be in the same car as Tiffany anyway.”
Craig’s mouth dropped open. “Man, Cathy, you’ve changed.”
“I know.” She smiled. “Isn’t it great?”
The two P.E. teachers quickly went through the rules of tennis. Then all the students proceeded to play, but Surla kept throwing the ball in the air and catching it over and over.
“Okay,” Travis, Craig’s partner, spoke up, “you can serve it to us now, Cathy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Surla hit the ball nicely across to the other side of the court.
For the first few games Craig and Travis won, but as the period went on Cathy and Chrissy were becoming better players, winning the last two.
The bell rang as Surla placed her and Chrissy’s rackets away. Before entering separate locker rooms, Craig said to them, “You two are tough, for girls.”
“You’re pretty tough, too, Craig—for being a guy,” Chrissy remarked.
“Well, I’ll see you later.” He started to walk. “Oh, and you too, Chrissy!”
Chemistry went by too slow for Surla. Even though Todd sat next her, they weren’t allowed to talk. Mrs. Spencer talks way too fast! Surla grumbled in her head. And why does she have to use so many words I cannot understand? All my life I’ve used magic. I don’t want to start learning science. She tapped her sharp, red nails on the desk lightly.
“All right, class,” the very serious-faced teacher said, “your homework will be on page five-fifty-seven in the textbook. It’s a review on everything we have learned in the last two weeks.” She slid her wire-rimmed glasses to the top her head. “I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
The bell rang. People rushed out of their seats, anticipating going home.
/> “You looked like you were having a tough time understanding.” Todd walked out of the classroom shoulder-to-shoulder with Surla.
“How could you tell?” she said.
“It was that twisted look you had on your face.” He chuckled.
“Thanks.” Surla smiled. “But it’s not my fault. Mrs. Spencer is hard to understand. And I do not want Cath…, I mean, my grade to drop.”
“Well, hey, Chemistry is one of my easy subjects. Maybe…,” he continued as he scratched the back of his neck shyly, “I could, like, tutor you or something.”
“Yeah, maybe. I’ll think about it.” Surla had to ask Cathy’s mom if it would be all right if he came over.
“Okay.” He headed toward his locker. “Don’t take too long to decide.”
Surla knew by instinct, the route to reaching Cathy’s house again. First, I have to go by Revere Park. She smiled at how good the day had gone so far.