We hit the marker for the second sprint, which was going to be a long one — one complete turn around the track. As we passed Mary Anne, I could see Jenny running back and forth, gritting her teeth (imitating us, I guess).
The minute I was past them, I felt a second wind. Maybe my legs were warming up or something, because I was able to get some extra speed. On either side of me, I could hear the sharp, frantic breathing of the other guys. We whizzed around the goalpost part of the track, everyone trying to keep pace.
On the straightaway, I began picking up more speed. To my amazement, everyone else kept pace. I dug in harder. I felt as if my lungs were going to explode. Everything in my peripheral vision was a blur.
I didn’t even notice a fifth person on the track on front of us.
Jenny!
“No!” Mary Anne shrieked. “Get back here!”
“See how fast I —”
Those were the only words of Jenny’s I remember hearing before I felt my legs give out. Bob had veered away from her and went plowing into me. We tumbled into the football field, taking the other two with us.
I think I blanked out for a split second, but when I got my bearings I realized I was lying flat on my stomach with Bob across my legs. The four of us were panting like crazy, too stunned and exhausted to say a word.
Jenny was staring at us, still standing, her eyes wide with fear. Somehow we had managed not to barrel into her. As Mary Anne rushed toward her, Jenny burst into tears.
Mary Anne scooped her up. “Jenny, what on earth —” she began.
“I — I wanted to run!” Jenny wailed through her tears.
Around me, the other guys were climbing to their feet. “This is no place for kids!” Alex Turnbull said.
“I’m sorry,” Mary Anne replied, backing away. She looked as frightened as Jenny did. “I guess this wasn’t such a good idea.”
“Good guess,” Bob muttered.
“I’ll take the girls home now,” Mary Anne said. “Sorry.”
I felt torn. I wanted to run after her and tell her it was okay. After all, it wasn’t really her fault. Who would have thought Jenny would do something stupid like that? On the other hand, I was pretty annoyed at Jenny. We were lucky there hadn’t been a serious accident.
“Sorry about that, guys,” was the only thing I could think of saying.
“Just can’t keep the girls away, huh?” Bob said with a sly grin.
“Of all ages,” Alex added.
Peter looked with mock horror at an elderly woman who was walking by the school. “Quick, hide him. Look who’s coming!”
“Not funny, guys,” I said with a sigh. “Come on, let’s get in a couple more sprints.”
“She is not!”
“She is!”
“Is not!”
“Is!”
The Hobart boys were having a conference. The topic was whether or not their older brother Ben was Mallory Pike’s friend or boyfriend.
It was Monday, and I was sitting for three Hobarts: Mathew, Johnny, and James. Ben was riding bikes with Mallory somewhere. And that was the center of the controversy.
In case you’re wondering, Ben and Mallory are only friends. But don’t try to tell James that. With Ben away, he was playing the sage older brother.
“You guys just don’t know about boyfriend-girlfriend stuff,” he said.
“We do so!” Mathew protested.
“Yeah!” Johnny echoed.
“Oh, yeah?” James shot back. “Okay, how old do you start having girlfriends?”
Mathew and Johnny looked at him blankly. “Um … twenty-five?” Mathew guessed.
James rolled his eyes. “No, you numskull. Eleven! Before you’re eleven, girls are friends. After eleven, they’re girlfriends. Everybody knows that.”
Johnny and Mathew nodded. They looked as if they’d just received the wisdom of the ages.
I was steering clear of this conversation. My legs felt tight, so I was doing stretches on the kitchen floor.
“Logan?” I heard Mathew say.
I turned around in midstretch. “Yeah?”
“James says …” Mathew’s voice trailed off. “What are you doing?”
“Stretching,” I answered. “I have to get my legs in shape for track tryouts.”
“What’s track?” Johnny asked.
James blurted out excitedly, “You’re trying out for the track team?”
“First question first,” I said, turning to Johnny. “Track is a name for a bunch of different sports, like running, jumping, pole vaulting, and relay racing.” Then I said to James. “And the answer is yes, I am trying out. I’ve been practicing at the SMS track.”
“The one that goes all the way around the football field?” Mathew said.
“Yup.”
“Wow! I want to run around that!” Johnny said. “I’ll go sooo fast.”
“I’ll go faster!” Mathew said.
James was practically jumping with excitement. “Can you take us there?”
“Yeah!” Mathew piped up.
“Yeah!” Johnny echoed.
Now they were all jumping around. I didn’t exactly have much choice. If I said no, I’d be the meanest person this side of Ebenezer Scrooge.
Besides, there was no football practice on Monday, and I was pretty sure the track would be empty. If I was lucky, I could make the kids happy and avoid being seen.
“All right, all right,” I said, standing up.
“Yeaaaa!” the brothers yelled.
“We’ll start with a cross-country run, from here to SMS!” I said. “It’s just a few blocks, and I don’t want any show-offs. We’ll all run at the same speed.”
“But Johnny’s too slow!” James whined.
“Am not!” Johnny retorted.
“James, it’s not that he’s slower, really,” I said. “It’s that your legs are longer than his. It’s all relative.”
“Yeah!” Johnny trumpeted. “We’re all relatives!”
The kids were wearing sneakers, so I grabbed the house keys and said, “Let’s go!”
With screams and squeals, they ran out the back door. I quickly wrote a note to the Hobarts, in case they came home early. Then I locked up and began jogging toward the school with the kids. Actually it was more like walking, because I made sure to keep Johnny’s pace. Mathew and James were pretty good about staying with us, although I had to call them back a couple of times.
When we reached the school, I breathed a sigh of relief. The track was empty. “Charge!” I called out.
This time Mathew and James sprinted ahead. They began running around the track as fast as they could — and they ran out of breath about a quarter of the way around.
Johnny joined them a few seconds later. He began doing a silly, zigzaggy run, with his arms and legs flailing all over the place.
Mathew and James followed behind, imitating him, and James plowed into a low hurdle, knocking it over. “Watch it, you guys!” I said.
“What are these things?” James asked.
“Hurdles,” I replied. “You’re supposed to jump over them. Watch.”
Now, the low hurdles is never going to be my main event, but I know how to run them. So I picked up the one James had knocked over, then backed up to prepare.
There were six of them in a row, spaced far enough apart for about four running paces. I eyed them carefully to psych myself up, then said, “Okay, here’s how you begin a race. First the referee says, ‘On your mark!’ and you go like this.” I crouched into a racing stance, one foot behind the other, hands on the ground, elbows slightly bent.
“Then he says, ‘Get set!’ ” I leaned forward, lifting my rear end and straightening my elbows.
“Then ‘Go!’ ” To a chorus of loud cheers, I sprinted toward the hurdles. I could feel my hamstrings aching. The first hurdle felt awful, but I cleared it. In fact, I cleared all but the second to last.
When I finished, I turned and raised my fists in triumph. The Hobart boys
were jumping up and down like crazy. But when I jogged toward them, I realized they weren’t cheering for me.
“I want to go first!” Mathew said.
“Age before beauty!” Johnny said.
“You don’t even know what that means!” James said.
“Whoa!” I cut in. “I hate to say it, but none of you is really big enough to clear these. Go ahead, James, try.”
I have to hand it to him. He gave the first one a good shot, but landed splat on the ground, laughing.
I had a better idea. “Let’s have a relay race!” I said, picking up a foot-long stick from the ground. “Here’s our baton. See this blue line?” I pointed to a marker on the track. “I’ll start here. You guys find the next three markers, and each of you stand on one. I’ll run to whoever’s on the next marker, and then he runs to the next one, and so on.”
They eagerly followed my instructions — almost. I passed to James, who promptly dropped the baton. He recovered it and ran to Mathew, who started running too soon. By the time Mathew got the baton, he and James were right behind Johnny, who grabbed it out of their hands — and ran off the track and across the football field, giggling.
“Get him!” I yelled, and we all chased after Johnny, finally tumbling on the grass in a fit of laughter.
Next they wanted to practice the positions for “on your marks, get set, go!” We lined up on the track and I called out the commands. They did the crouch, the lift, and the takeoff. That was all they were supposed to do, but of course they insisted on having a race each time.
And each time they came back to their marks, they were more and more breathless. Finally, after about the tenth time, Johnny said, “I’m tired!”
“Yeah?” I replied. “Maybe we better head back.”
“No, one more time!” James insisted.
“Yeah, we can do it without Johnny!” Mathew said.
“No!” Johnny protested. “I’ll do it, too!”
We lined up again. The boys were red-faced with exhaustion. “On your marks!” I said.
They crouched. I could see Mathew’s left arm buckle a little.
“Get set!”
They lifted. This time Johnny’s right leg buckled.
“Go!”
James lurched ahead. I could see he had “world record” on his mind. But his knees weren’t ready. He stumbled to the left, and ran into Mathew.
Mathew lost his balance. He reached out, grabbing Johnny and pulling him to the ground. I was on the far left, and the weight of three Hobarts was too much for me.
We landed in a heap on the track.
“Pile up!” James screamed.
Giggling, Mathew and Johnny decided they would attack me together. “Tickle monster!” Mathew shouted.
They came at my rib cage with their fingers. I don’t usually think of myself as ticklish, but they were doing a great job. I tried to wriggle away, laughing uncontrollably. “Stop stop stop stop stop stop!” I said.
“Hey, what is this, a day care center?”
The new voice was like a slap in the face. Mathew and Johnny whirled around to look. I scrambled to my feet.
There, standing with their hands on their hips, were Alex Turnbull, Peter Hayes, and three other guys in running clothes.
“Oh, sorry,” I replied. “I was just showing them the track.”
“Uh, would you mind baby-sitting some-place else so we can run?” Bob said. “Some-place far away so no little kid wanders into our path?”
“We were about to go home anyway,” I said.
“Good,” Bob replied.
“Hey, Logan, you going to bring some kids to the tryouts, too?” Alex called out.
“It’s not Logan, it’s Lois!” Peter added. “Lois, the new Baby-sitters Club member!”
The guys laughed as if this were the funniest joke ever made. I tell you, I was boiling mad inside. I wanted to slug all of them, but I couldn’t. Like it or not, the Hobart boys were my main concern.
So I swallowed my anger. Buried it deep down, somewhere near my ankles. “Come on, kids,” I said.
We left silently. Behind us, my former friends were still joking, but I was tuning them out.
The Hobarts were silent almost all the way home. Like me, they just stared at the side-walk as we walked.
“Logan,” James finally said, as we approached their house, “why were those guys teasing you like that?”
“They called you Lois,” Johnny added.
I took a deep breath. “Some guys — not all, just some — think that guys shouldn’t baby-sit. They think it’s something girls do, and it’s not as important as, you know, boy stuff, like sports.”
“You think it’s important, don’t you?” Mathew asked.
“Sure I do. But I’m different from those guys, I guess, and that makes them try to act superior. So they tease me.”
James nodded. “Yeah, my brothers and I used to get teased all the time, right?”
“Yes,” Mathew and Johnny agreed.
“People used to make fun of our accent,” James continued. “They thought we were freaks or something. They were being stupid.”
“But we stood up to them,” Mathew said, “and they started being nicer.”
“It’s bad to tease,” Johnny said.
“It is,” I agreed. “I think people do it when they feel scared, or when they think something’s being taken away from them. You guys know Jessi Ramsey?”
“The baby-sitter?” James asked.
“Yeah. People were mean to her just because she’s black. And people make fun of my brother Hunter all the time because he has allergies that make him talk funny.”
“It’s dumb,” Mathew said. “I used to tease a kid back in Australia, but I don’t tease any-body anymore.”
The Hobarts’ car was in the driveway, and as we walked up the lawn, Mr. Hobart came to the screen door. “Hi, mates!” he called out. “Have a good day?”
His sons rushed inside to tell him their news. I followed them in, politely collected my pay, and said good-bye.
“ ’Bye!” the boys echoed. Mathew added, “Good luck with the track tryouts!”
“Thanks,” I replied, “but I’ll see you before then. Remember, I’m taking you guys to the health fair on Saturday.”
“Hey, awesome!” Mathew said with a grin.
I waved and headed out the door.
I wasn’t sure awesome was the right word. If I had one more scene like today’s, gruesome would be more like it.
It felt great to put on my cleats and my padding. Tuesday afternoon was my first football practice in a week, and I had missed being there.
At least I thought I had. My feeling changed the minute King walked into the locker room. “Hey, look who’s here! Lois Bruno, the baby-sitter!”
“Eeeek! There’s a girl in the locker room!” Pete Black screeched, pulling his towel tightly around him.
“Very funny, guys,” I said, trying to be a sport about it. In the back of my mind, I was furious at Bob, or Alex, or whichever of those guys had told King about my new nickname. What was I now, the talk of the school?
Just because I do a little baby-sitting?
“Don’t listen to those jerks,” Austin Bentley said as he sat at his locker, three down from mine.
“I’m not,” I answered. “I don’t care what they say.”
Okay, I lied. But I figured by saying that, I might actually start to feel it was true.
I walked out to the field with Austin. A bunch of the guys were already tossing the ball around, running sprints through tires, bashing into padded dummies, the usual fun-filled stuff.
Austin picked a football off the ground. “Go out for a pass!” he said.
I sprinted downfield and turned. Austin’s throw sailed over my head and hit the ground a few yards in front of me. It bounced away, toward a cluster of my teammates on the sidelines.
Harry Nolan, one of our wide receivers, grabbed it and said, “Nice of you to show up.”
/> He tossed the ball to a tackle named Steve Randazzo, who said, “Hey, Harry, let’s give it back to her.” Then, turning to me, he tossed the ball with an awkward, slow underhand motion, as if he were throwing to a baby. “Here, Lois, catch.”
This was going way too far, and I didn’t have to take it. But before I could say a thing, Coach Mills blew his whistle. “Okay, line up for calisthenics!” he called out.
As we trudged into formation, I ended up next to King. “Ew, who wants to play football with a girl?” he muttered, changing places with Austin.
“Shut your mouth, you orangutan,” Austin said.
That was good for a few laughs, which made King scowl and say, “What’s the matter, Lois can’t talk for herself?”
I was beginning to lose it. These guys had singled me out, and they weren’t going to let up. I’d seen them do it to others, and I knew they only got worse if you showed any emotion. “King,” I said, as cool as I could be, “cram it.”
“Ooooh,” came a few voices behind us.
“Push-up position!” Coach Mills yelled. “One … two … three …”
I don’t love doing push-ups, but I was happy for the silence. After push-ups, we went through sit-ups and jumping jacks. It was during the sit-ups, I think, that I first noticed Mary Anne in the stands.
Seeing her really lifted my mood, but I have to admit, the first thing I did was look around for kids. Fortunately, she was alone.
I hoped she hadn’t been there when the insults were flying, but as it turned out, it didn’t matter. There were plenty more to come.
In the first play of our intrasquad game, I went after a pass and fell. Harry Nolan was covering me, and as he ran by he said, “What’s the matter, the kids wearing you out?”
Later on, King tackled me on a hand-off, and while we were on the ground he said, “So, what’s this I hear about you joining the Girl Scouts, too?”
In the second half, just as I was about to catch a long, perfect pass that would have been a sure touchdown, I heard Pete Black yell, “Watch that nail polish!”
I dropped the ball.
As I headed back to the line of scrimmage, Coach Mills walked up to me. “What’s going on here?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you seem a little out of shape — and you look mad at the world. You feeling all right?”