1.

“Amanda ran into the dark, suspecting what was coming. As the night began to close in and the moon began to shine, she looked fearfully behind her, expecting the worse. When she saw nothing pursuing her, she stopped in confusion, only to hear the sound of a snapping branch. She turned back around slowly to find-,”

 I chewed the end of my pencil furiously, my eyes darting across the pages of my book. The sound of people crinkling paper and shifting in their seats make me look up in annoyance. But it also helps me snap out of the haze I often find myself in right after reading a good book. I’m not really in the world of Amanda Bolger, a teenage witch attempting to escape forces of evil- I’m in my fourth period history class, hiding behind my ridiculously sized textbook to avoid being caught reading my latest novel. If only there was a class where you can do nothing but read, I think wistfully. I’d finally be able to pay attention then. I look back down at the page, but thinking better of it, I glance upwards towards the front of the class before continuing- might as well pretend as if I’m paying attention.

Surprise- Mr. Fisher isn’t there. I look across the aisle to my best friend, Drake, in confusion. He looks back at me with what appears to be a pained expression on his face. I gesture towards the front of the class, where Mr. Fisher is absent, and mouth where is he? Drake jerks his head in a gesture that I assume to mean look behind you. Slowly, I turn in my seat to find Mr. Fisher standing behind my desk, with an eyebrow raised. The class erupts into nervous laughter, and I can feel my cheeks flush before I give him a meek smile.

“Again, Miss. Bennett?” he asks tiredly. “We have been over this before, have we not?”

“I’m sorry,” I say automatically. I’m used to this scenario, repeated with all my teachers at least twice each. “It won’t happen again, Mr. Fisher.”

“That’s what you always say, Collins,” he sighs. “Remember what I said last time about reading in class?”

“Yes,” I mutter.

“Good, so you understand that a detention will be necessary,” he says firmly. I nod, shifting my gaze to my desk, aware that my cheeks are burning and that the eyes of everyone in the room are on me. I glance behind me to see Mr. Fisher filling out a detention slip, so I’m safe as I meet the eyes of my classmates with a bold, hard stare. Most look slightly embarrassed and turned away, shifting their weight uncomfortably. Some meet my gaze head on, and some especially shy ones shrink back in their seats. One in particular smiles cheekily back at me. That ‘one’ is Drake.

“Here you are, Miss. Bennett,” Mr. Fisher says, tearing the detention sheet from the pad with a flourish and handing it to me. “Right after school, 3:05 sharp. You’ll be in room 30A.” I’m about to take the detention sheet from his hand when a horrifying thought comes to me.

“Wait, Mr. Fisher! Soccer practice is after school today,” I say, trying to keep the alarmed tone from my voice.

“Yes?” he asks, looking unconcerned. Drake shoots me a look of sympathy.

“Well, since I have practice, could you reschedule my detention for tomorrow?” I ask anxiously.

“I’m afraid not,” Mr. Fisher answers, with some humor in his voice. My heart sinks a fraction at the thought of having to miss soccer practice. “I told you the last time this happened, that if it happened again you’d be given a detention.”

“Yes, but-,” I almost argue back, but stop myself, worried that he might extend my detention if I piss him off.

“Okay,” I say grudgingly, taking the slip from him and stuffing it into my pocket.

“Kindly put your book away or I will be forced to confiscate it,” Mr. Fisher adds, walking back up to the front of the class to continue the lesson. I roll my eyes at his turned back and focused my gaze on the board, attempting to seem focused. But inwardly, I’m panicking. I can’t miss soccer practice. I never miss practice if I can help it. Actually, I never miss even if I can’t help it. The games on Saturday and this is the second to last practice before then! If I miss a team practice, then...

I spend the rest of the class staring vacantly forward and frantically calculating the hours I’ll have to practice until Saturday to make up for missing a team practice. And when the bell rings, I’m the first one out of my seat. As I exit the classroom, I stand outside the door and shuffle my feet impatiently, looking for Drake within the mass of people that are exiting the classroom for lunch.

Where is he? I wonder with annoyance. I crane my neck to attempt to look past the mob of people, and I finally see his lanky frame trailing at the back. I sigh in relief as I catch sight of him. It’s not as if I’m so attached to Drake. But he’s been my constant best friend since birth, and we do a lot together. Eating lunch is one of them. He isn’t my only friend, of course. I do have other friends; it’s not as if I’m a loner. But he’s the only one who I can really be myself around, and trust with everything. He moves closer towards the doorway, looking annoyed at the surrounding mob that is high school. His blue and white button down is creased, as if he had picked it up from the floor this morning and thrown it on. His white-blonde hair is in his eyes, and it isn’t until he flicks the stray strands away that I can see his eyes- light blue that always seem to reflect the sky on a cloudless day.

“This school really needs to get a traffic cop,” he mutters as he makes his way out of the room.     

“They’d probably run him over, too,” I say sarcastically as we walk down the hall.

“You’re mad about the detention, aren’t you?” he says, and he can’t help but let a small smile show onto his face.

“It’s not so much the detention I mind as much as the fact that I have to miss out on soccer practice,” I respond.

“Don’t worry, I’ll tell the coach what happened,” he smiles cheekily.

“Believe me, I know you will,” I snort as we enter the cafeteria.

“You know,” he says as I hand him a plastic lunch tray. “You could try not reading in class anymore. That way there’s no chance of you getting caught and getting a detention.”

He takes in my sharp glare and shakes his head in amusement. “I thought not.”

 

“I want these pans clean, you hear me?” the home economics teacher barks. I nod and hurry over to the sink, mentally cursing Mr. Fisher for giving me the crabby old woman. Removing a batter-smeared pan from the pile, I turn on the faucet and slip on a pair of gloves. I rinse away the leftover food before anything else, and pause a moment to take in my reflection from the stainless steel. My features are distorted from the metallic surface, but I can still identify my features.

My normally waist length light brown hair that resembles a dark caramel color is tied back, to keep it from getting wet from the sink and is hanging above my plaid three quarter sleeve shirt. My lightly tanned skin from soccer appears much darker in the pan than it is in reality. My too-big eyes- you can’t see them clearly in the reflection but I know that they are a stormy blue, but sometimes seems as if they’re green. And although you can’t see my height, I know that as well; five feet four inches. It’s the appearance that I have lived my life with, and that my classmates know me by- if they didn’t know of me by my obsession for reading, passion for soccer and seemingly constant ability to annoy teachers.

I’ve never been very good with people. It’s hard for me to make friends, and I’ve never been nearly as close to anyone as I am to Drake. But part of the reason why we are such good friends is because our mothers are best friends, too, so sometimes I wonder if I would have ended up as a friendless hermit with an attitude if not for my mom’s choice in friends. However, I doubt it- Drake and I have a lot in common. We both play soccer, we both live with our mothers, we both don’t have a father (well, we obviously HAVE one, but not one that’s worth two cents, seeing neither stuck around), and we both love to read. I never have much in common with any of my classmates- and I’m not very likeable, either- I’ll openly admit it. I can come off as rude, indifferent to my surroundings, and snarky. People aren’t really my thing- but books are. Although Drake enjoys a good book, he doesn’t understand my practical obsession for reading. And I don’t know if I’ll ever tell him the real reason why I read- because I’m not satisfied with the life I live and the world I’m living it in, and reading always seems like an escape into a different time and place where I can live the life I’ve always wanted to. I’m not a typical seventeen year old girl. While my schoolmates will be out on Friday nights, most likely I’ll be at home, reading away while listening to my music, or maybe practicing some soccer drills with Drake. Soccer. The only other thing I enjoy. I put everything into soccer- my time, my dedication, my blood and sweat. I think part of the reason I enjoy soccer so much is because it gives me a purpose to actually do something; to know that I’m part of a movement where I’m necessary for there to be a victory.

“If you’re planning to stand there all day, neither of us are ever going to get home!” the home economics teacher’s sharp voice causes me to jump, startling me out of my thoughts, and I quickly flip over the pan and begin scrubbing at it.

 

“Col!” I recognize the voice calling to me, and I turn to see Drake half-running towards me. “Wait up!”

So I do. He’s sweaty when he reaches me, and I let him know by pretending to recoil from him.

“God, Drake, you chose today to skip the shower?” Aprils in Arkansas are normally mild and cool, but today was an unusually warm day. And naturally, it was the one day Drake had decided to skip washing away the sweat that was the result of a grueling soccer practice.

“Well, I had to if I was going to catch up to you,” he smiles and shifts his backpack.

“How was practice?” I ask, unable to keep the wistful tone out of my voice.

“Coach is pissed at you,” Drake laughs. “She said she might not even let you play in the game.”

“No way!” I say, alarmed. “She wouldn’t do that!”

“I don’t think she really would,” Drake assures me. “She was just mad that you missed out on the next to last practice before the finals. We’ve been prepping for this all year.”

“I know,” I say, tugging at the bottom of my shirt. “I can’t help that Mr. Fisher had to give me a detention.”

“Because you absolutely couldn’t stop yourself from reading in class, could you?” Drake says sarcastically.

“Actually, I couldn’t,” I inform him. “It’s this really good book about...”

Drake humors me by listening to my animated description of the book, and the events that I’ve read about so far during the entire walk home. Just as I’ve started recalling the section of the book that I’m currently reading and we’ve reached the sidewalk that leads us to our separate homes, my front door opens and Drake’s mother, Bela, steps out of my home with my own mom. Their eyes both look tense for a moment before they take notice of us and visibly relax.

“Hey, kids,” my mom greets us in a cheerful tone. “Drake, your mom was just dropping by so we could catch up before you two came home.”

“Oh, well, I hope you had a good time,” Drake says, smiling.

“I had a really good time, Lora,” Bela says, giving my mom a look that I can’t identify. At first, I think they’re having a fight. But my mother pulls Bela into a hug, so I know that that can’t be it.

“Come on, Drake,” Bela says, still looking as if something is bothering her. She puts her arm around him before drawing back and wrinkling her nose.

“Did you not take a shower?”

My mom and I laugh as we watch Bela and Drake playfully arguing before she puts her own arm around me and guides me inside.

“Your hair isn’t wet,” she remarks. I cringe slightly, but I don’t think she notices. I didn’t think this through! What do I say?

“Um, yeah, I didn’t go to practice today,” I say uncomfortably, sitting down at the kitchen table.

“Really? Why not?” my mom raises an eyebrow as she hands me an apple from the fruit bowl.

“Well,” I say, taking a bite of my apple, stalling.

“Collins,” my mom says, giving me a solid look.

I chew slowly, and then swallow, sighing. “Okay, okay. Mr. Fisher gave me an after school detention, so I couldn’t make it to practice.”

“Detention? Why?” my mom questions. She doesn’t seem as upset as I thought she might be, so I continue.

“Well... I was kind of reading in class,” I say, glancing upwards to look at her face. She doesn’t seem angry, though. Just exasperated.

“Collins,” she begins, taking a seat in the chair across from mine. “We’ve talked about this before. You can’t keep reading during class, especially if it’ll cost you a practice.”

“I know,” I mumble, taking another bite.

“Your team needs you, and you have a big game coming up. If you mess up, so does the team. You all rely on each other, and it only takes one person to ruin the game.”

“It’s not like I’m the worst player on the team,” I say defensively. “I’ve already figured out the schedule, I can just add in some more practicing hours to make up for it.”

“But that was one team practice opportunity you lost,” she argues. “You can’t make choices like this, because it won’t only cost you, it may cost your team a victory.”

“Mom, I can just practice extra, okay?” I can’t keep the annoyance from my voice. “It’s not the end of the world.”

My mother looks at me for a moment, and I think that I’ve pushed her too far. But she sighs, moving her gaze down to her lap. “I know it isn’t. But Collins, this isn’t just about soccer. I’m trying to teach you something about life, too.”