“Well, what?” I asked.
“When are you four musketeers going to pass initiation and become real team members?”
“We are real team members,” I said.
“That’s what you think,” said Marcia, and walked away.
Tallie and Coreen met Bea and me outside the locker room after practice one afternoon.
“Good workout, huh,” said Coreen.
“Killer,” said Dilys, and I nodded.
“That’s Coach Wu,” said Tallie in the friendliest tone of voice I heard her use. “She’s killer. But she’s fair.”
“I like her a lot,” I said.
Coreen said, “We don’t like to let her down. The team, I mean.”
“So what do you think?” Tallie asked. “Is it fair for some members of a team to get special treatment?”
“No,” said Dilys slowly.
“I don’t think so either,” said Tallie. “It kind of ruins team morale. But all of us who have already been initiated kind of think you new guys are getting special treatment.”
“Because we’re not going to participate in hazing?” I said. “That’s ridiculous. If Coach Wu knew about this …”
Tallie’s eyes suddenly blazed with anger. “Coach Wu doesn’t know. Nobody knows. We’re a team. We can keep team things secret — as a team. And to be on this team, you have to do everything that’s required to be a part of it.”
“So what you’re saying,” said Dilys, “is that if we don’t spray paint the shed, we’re not part of the team.”
“We can make that happen,” said Coreen.
She and Tallie left me and Dilys to face one another.
“Oh, Kristy, what are we going to do?” said Dilys, her golden brown eyes miserable.
I felt as miserable as she looked. I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I answered.
The next practice was a nightmare. Everything that could go wrong, did. No matter how careful I was, I couldn’t seem to hold on to the ball. Dilys was having the same problem. We looked like a couple of beginners, dropping balls and flubbing plays.
But Tonya and Bea seemed to be doing just fine. They were fitting right in. And it seemed to me that they were avoiding us.
No one said anything to either Dilys or me after that practice. But then, they didn’t need to. They’d made their point. If we didn’t go along with what they wanted, they’d make us look so bad Coach Wu would throw us off the team. They’d already intimidated us into playing badly this afternoon.
Nobody said anything to us, and we didn’t say anything to each other. Or to anybody else.
At least, I didn’t. I didn’t know what to say.
I was angry. Angry with them and angry with myself. I hated the pressure they were putting on me. It was wrong. Unfair. But maybe, on the other hand, I was being picky. A big baby. After all, it was only an old shed. Besides, if the other team members had gone through their initiation, maybe it was only fair that we go through ours.
And except for the whole hazing issue, I wanted to be a part of the team. I loved playing softball. I loved playing with good players and having my own uniform and all the cool stuff I was learning from Coach Wu and the other players. I loved feeling myself getting in shape, getting better. And better.
I didn’t want to quit.
And I sure didn’t want to be thrown off the team.
So when Coreen and Tallie and Marcia stopped Dilys and me after the next practice, I took a deep breath and, ignoring the voice inside me that said, “Don’t let them push you around,” I said to them, “Okay, you’ve made your point.”
I looked at Dilys. Bea and Tonya, I realized, were standing a little to one side, watching. Waiting.
Then I said, “Friday night.”
“Dilys?” said Tallie.
Dilys lowered her eyes. Then she shrugged. “What’s the big deal, anyway?” she asked. “Why not?”
The forbidding looks that everyone had been wearing melted away.
“Outstanding!” cried Tonya, practically skipping forward. “I’m so glad. Listen, Bea and I have it all planned. We’re going to meet at nine o’clock. We’re each going to bring a can of spray paint, a different color for each of us. I’m yellow and Bea is green. What about red for you, Kristy?”
Somehow, the idea of color coordinating the spray paint was so ridiculous that it almost made me feel better. Almost. At least, it was easier somehow to tell myself that I had let this whole thing get out of perspective. It was all so silly.
“Sure,” I said.
“And you’ll be blue, Dilys.”
Dilys nodded.
“Great,” said Bea.
“Congratulations,” said Marcia.
Tallie punched Marcia’s arm playfully. “Don’t congratulate them yet. Wait till the dreadful deed is done.”
As we walked out across the SMS grounds, we passed Coach Wu loading some equipment into her car.
“Good night, coach,” called Tallie.
Coach Wu looked up and, seeing us all together, smiled and looked pleased.
“Good night, team,” she called.
* * *
Needless to say, I spent most of the Friday BSC meeting thinking about the “dreadful deed.” I had spent most of Thursday night on the phone with Dilys and Bea and Tonya, making plans. Since I lived so far away from SMS, I’d had to convince Charlie to give me a ride to Bea’s house. We were having a softball get-together for new members, I told him. At least that was true, more or less. But it wasn’t really. It was a lie. The whole evening was a lie.
Like, I wasn’t going in Bea’s house. I was going to meet Bea and Dilys and Tonya under the tree at the back corner of SMS near the shed.
And then we were going to do our initiation.
“Kristy?”
“Hmm? Oh,” I looked up to find the rest of the BSC staring at me.
“Long week, Kristy?” asked Mary Anne.
“Yeah,” I said.
Silence.
“Uh, Kristy?” said Shannon.
“Yeah?”
Shannon silently pointed at her watch.
I looked down at mine. Six-oh-five.
“Good grief!” I said. “This meeting of the BSC is officially adjourned!”
“And the week is officially over,” said Claudia gleefully.
I didn’t say anything. Because it wasn’t true for me. The hardest part of my week was just beginning.
I stowed the red spray paint in my backpack and looked at myself in the mirror. I was wearing blue jeans, a dark blue long sleeved shirt, and black hightops. I figured I didn’t want to be too visible in the dark, just in case.
Just in case. Just in case what?
We weren’t going to get caught, I told myself. I just had to stay calm and get this over with.
I hoisted my backpack and went downstairs and got into the car with Charlie.
“So, how do you like the team?” asked Charlie as we drove toward Bea’s.
“It’s fun. You won’t forget to pick me up at eleven?”
“No. Short party.”
“Well, it’s been a long week. We’re all pretty tired. But we wanted to get together.”
“Just the new players, right? Yeah, new players have to stick together, at least at first. Soon you’ll all feel more a part of the team.”
If only Charlie knew, I thought. Aloud I said, “Yeah. Well, here’s Bea’s house. Thanks, Charlie.”
Charlie, of course, waited until I got up to Bea’s door. I pretended to ring the doorbell, then turned and waved. Charlie waved back and drove off.
I walked quickly (and quietly) down Bea’s front walk, then broke into a jog. A few minutes later, I reached the meeting place.
At first, I didn’t see anyone. I stopped, my heart pounding. Had they changed their minds?
Then something moved.
“Uh!” I croaked, in spite of myself.
“Chill,” said Tonya. “It’s me.”
“Tonya.”
&
nbsp; “Yeah. You’re the last one. Thought for a minute you weren’t going to show up.”
“Well, I did.” My eyes were getting used to the dark, and I could dimly see Dilys and Bea nearby.
“Oh, Kristy. This is exciting,” breathed Tonya.
I didn’t say anything, but I let her lead the way through the dark toward the old shed. We could barely see the outline of it in the faint light reaching us from the entry lights around the doors of SMS.
“De-de, de-de,” hummed Dilys. I recognized the opening notes of the old television show The Twilight Zone. I couldn’t help it. I gave a snort of laughter.
“Shhhh,” said Bea, but I could tell that she was barely suppressing laughter, too.
And then we were there. “The target has been reached,” I intoned solemnly.
“Women, get out your weapons,” added Bea.
We fumbled for a moment, then I heard the sound of the spray paint cans being shaken up.
“Let’s each take a side,” suggested Tonya.
We split up and I heard Tonya call softly, “On the count of three. One. Two. THREE.”
We all began to spray. It was a weird, wild, spooky feeling, spraying at the dim outline of the old shed in the near pitch dark. I didn’t try to spray paint anything in particular, just big (nervous) loops and whirls.
At first it was scary. Then after awhile it got monotonous. I was glad we were outside, too. The paint stunk and made my eyes water. But my night vision was getting better and better. It wasn’t that hard to see now at all.
I finally stopped. “Whew,” I said. “I can’t take this anymore!” I staggered back around the shed and joined Dilys, who’d just stopped spraying, too. A few moments later, Tonya and Bea joined us.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Dilys.
“Wait,” gasped Tonya. She sagged to the ground near the shed and began rooting around in her sling bag and Bea dropped down beside her.
“Mission accomplished!” Bea giggled and reached in her pocket. I suddenly realized that both Bea and Tonya were taking out cigarettes.
“Come on,” said Tonya. “Have a cigarette to celebrate.”
“No way,” I said.
“No thanks,” said Dilys emphatically at the same time.
“Suit yourself,” said Tonya. “I tell you what, I need a cigarette. My nerves!”
I wondered who Tonya was copying as she struck the match. It went out. The second one stayed lit, but went out when she raised it to light her cigarette. She finally got it lit and took a big drag — and coughed loudly.
“Shhh!” I said.
Bea, meanwhile, struck one, two, three, four matches in a row, throwing them impatiently to the ground until at last she got her own cigarette lit. She wasn’t any more experienced at smoking than Tonya. In fact, she coughed even more loudly.
“Athletes don’t smoke,” I said. “In fact, people with any intelligence don’t.”
In answer, Tonya took a long drag on her cigarette and inexpertly blew the smoke in the air.
“I’m leaving,” I said. “NOW.”
I turned and marched away through the darkness with Dilys beside me. A few minutes later, panting and smelling of cigarettes, Bea and Tonya caught up.
We walked silently back to Bea’s house. Bea waited on the porch with me until Charlie arrived and waved as I got back in the car. I knew as we drove away that she would sneak around to the back of the house and in through the basement door, which she’d left open.
“How’d it go?” asked Charlie as I slid into the car.
Did I smell like spray paint? And cigarette smoke? I rolled down the window.
“Okay,” I said.
“Hang in there,” he told me.
* * *
“A lovely, temperate day ahead,” the announcer’s voice concluded. It was my clock radio going off on Saturday morning. I’d forgotten to reset it for the weekend. I lay there, feeling generally exhausted and woolly-brained, not thinking about much of anything until the WSTO newscaster segued into the news.
And then I sat bolt upright.
“An old equipment shed at Stoneybrook Middle School burned to the ground last night,” she said. “A neighborhood man who saw the fire phoned it in, then rushed to the scene to attempt to contain it. He was badly burned and is now in the local hospital where he is listed in critical condition. Authorities are investigating.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I made a lunge for the radio and punched through the stations trying to find another newscast. But radio doesn’t have instant replays.
Feeling sick, I sank down on the bed again. It wasn’t possible. I was mistaken. I hadn’t heard right.
But I knew I had. SMS only had one old shed — the shed that Tonya and Bea and Dilys and I had spray painted last night as our initiation to the SMS softball team.
The fire must have started with Tonya and Bea’s matches. For a moment I felt a little relieved. A little. Then I remembered the warnings all over the can of spray paint: TOXIC. HIGHLY FLAMMABLE. CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE.
If a fire had started and come in contact with one of those aerosol cans of paint….
I leaned over and dragged my pack out from under my bed where I tossed it the night before. The top was half unzipped. I pulled the pack open and pawed through it quickly.
No can of paint.
Had I left the can? Had it fallen out of my pack because I hadn’t zipped it up? Had my can of spray paint in combination with Tonya’s and Bea’s matches caused the fire?
I looked at the clock radio. It seemed like an eternity had passed but it had only been a few minutes. It was still early. But not, I decided, definitely not too early to make a few phone calls to three people who should know about the fire.
* * *
Late that morning, I let the last person in.
“Hello, Bea,” I said. “We’re all in my room.”
“Is everyone else here?”
“Yeah. Dilys and Tonya are waiting,” I said grimly.
Bea didn’t seem to be taking the news very hard. She looked around as I led the way to my room and said, “Nice shack, Kristy. Or maybe I should say, shed?”
Then she actually giggled!
“Are you nuts?” I hissed. “Go on!” I pushed her into my room where the other two were waiting and shut the door.
I’d barely gotten it closed before Dilys wailed, “What are we going to do?”
“Nothing,” said Tonya stonily. “If we don’t tell anyone, we probably won’t get caught. But if we do get caught, we’ll all be in big trouble. And so will the entire softball team.”
I was stunned. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I’d only thought how terrible it was to have done something like setting a shed on fire — even accidentally — and hurting someone.
Tonya continued, “We’re in this together, so we all have to keep quiet.”
“What about the evidence?” I blurted out. “I mean, we probably left footprints. And cans of spray paint.” (I didn’t say I left my can of spray paint. That I couldn’t find it anywhere.) “Cans that might even have contributed to the fire. And what if that guy who got hurt dies?”
Bea looked suddenly sober. “Dies?” she repeated in a stricken voice.
Tonya shook her head. “He’s not going to die, okay, Bea? And as for evidence, there’ve been so many people around that shed just putting out the fire that they’ll never find anything.
“The important thing is not to go near the shed, not to say or do anything suspicious, not to even mention the fire. We have to stick together.”
I’d thought of something else. “What about Tallie and Marcia and the others? They know we were there last night. As soon as they hear the news …”
As if in answer to my question, the phone rang. It was Tallie.
“Kristy?”
“Yeah.”
“Tallie. You’ve heard?”
“Yeah. So have Bea and Dilys and Tonya. We’re a
ll here.”
“Good,” said Tallie. “Now listen. If you are caught, even one of you, or if you confess or even breathe one word of this to a living soul, the team will stick together.”
For a moment, I thought she meant that the SMS softball team was going to support us. But her next words dispelled that illusion.
“We’ll swear there was no hazing, no initiation. That you are lying. That you’re making it up so you won’t get in trouble for burning that shed down.”
“What!” I was outraged. And chilled.
“You’ll be on your own,” said Tallie. “And you’ll be in bigger trouble than ever for lying. You understand?”
“I understand,” I said. “Thanks for the —”
But Tallie had already hung up the phone.
“What did she say?” asked Tonya.
“That the team won’t back us up if we say the fire got started as part of a hazing. That they’ll all swear we’re lying to save ourselves.”
Bea’s eyes were enormous. “Oh, wow,” she muttered.
Tonya said, “Then we better not get caught.”
“We won’t,” said Dilys fiercely.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.
But I felt sick.
On Saturday morning, the Krushers and the new coaches had their first practice together. Alone. On the theory that the clothes make the coach (or at least help), Claudia and Stacey had conferred the night before and had dressed up for the occasion. Claudia was wearing a red satin baseball cap, purple sweatpants that were cut off just below the knees, purple hightops with neon pink laces, red-and-white-striped socks, and a red and pink tie-dyed crop top shirt. Stacey was in black bicycle shorts with neon yellow racing stripes down the sides, a pair of Nikes with matching neon yellow swooshes on the side (but ordinary white laces), an enormous white v-neck T-shirt, a black jog bra, and a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap, turned around backwards. They were both using old gloves of mine. Stacey was wearing my whistle. Claudia had this funky clay whistle shaped like a bird on a leather thong around her neck that she’d made in art class. It didn’t really blast like Stacey’s, but the Krushers all liked it anyway.
The practice got off to a good start. Stacey looked at Claud, Claud nodded, and Stacey blasted away on her whistle. There was an immediate echo — Karen on her whistle — and everybody who hadn’t already gathered around the two new coaches came over.