Chapter 5 Rachel

Chapter 5 Rachel

“Hey, Rachel, do you get this?” Joe asks from behind me. I turn around. He motions to the chemistry worksheet Ms. Fin just passed out.

            “Sure. Need help?” I ask.

            “Absolutely.”

            “Hey Rache, think you could help me out too?” Jenna asks from my left. I look over and Peter is also giving me a concerned look.

            “Yeah, is this an extension of what we did when I was gone?” Jesse questions me from my right.

            “Don’t worry guys,” I say. “I’ll help you.”

            With the assistance of my peers I form a table with our desks. I carefully go through the first problem with them, and tell them if they have questions just to ask. We continue on through the worksheet until a few minutes before the bell when we move the desks back.

When the bell rings, I walk with Jenna to the softball field. We’re both on the team, but of course there were no cuts so that really doesn’t say much.

“So what do you think of softball so far?” I ask her.

“It’s alright. Better than our other options anyway. You think we’re gonna win today?”

“Of course! You should know that, being our star player.”

She gives me a skeptical look. “I just started playing softball this year and you consider me our star player?”

“Come on, this team couldn’t survive without us.”

“Totally.”

Our coach gives us a pep talk right before the game. She always does.

“You girls can do this! You think those pesky turtles can beat the dolphins? No, dolphins eat turtles in the wild. Dolphins eat sharks. Dolphins eat whales. Nothing can beat a dolphin, they’re at the top of the food chain!”

I look at Ms. Keiled curiously. This is the first time I’ve noticed how similar her name is to killed. I wonder if she even knows what a dolphin eats.

At the game I spot my family with no problem. They sit in the middle of the stands, up in front. My sister is there, as promised. The game goes on and on, I’ve played in the out of the outfield. I haven’t been up to bat yet. Personally, I don’t see why I shouldn’t get the opportunity. The couch has seen me bat before, but I almost always hit foul balls. Our best player, Kerry, has been batting at every opportunity. I agree that she should be. She’s our best bet, and yet the score still stays pretty close.

My coach calls me in again after our third out. We’re in the seventh inning. Back into the outfield. The pitcher throws a fastball, their batter swings. The bat makes contact with the ball and it shoots straight out. The pitcher collapses where she is, and I freeze for a moment. To the credit of the batter, she does not run to first base. She runs straight to the pitcher. It doesn’t matter. No one goes after the ball. I sprint to her, although I know it’s pointless. She probably needs room more at this point than a crowd of people surrounding her.

When I get to her, the coach is there trying to get people to stay back, as expected.

“Is it broken? Is it broken?” the pitcher, Elizabeth asks the coach.

It turns out, someone’s parent at the game is a doctor, and they come to look at her. He determines that it isn’t broken, only badly bruised. Her parents insist she goes home to rest, but she refuses.

“I will be at least watching the rest of this game if it takes my head off,” she declares.

“It just might,” I hear someone snicker in the background. The coach of the other team shoots a dirty look in the general direction.

It’s decided that she’ll stay in the stands, and the game continues. After a long discussion, the batter who hit her re-bats. She strikes out, which surprises no one, she must be a wreck.

            After their first strike out, they rally back. Before I know it, the bases are loaded. One more out to go. We’re in a tie.

            The next batter comes up to the plate, a solid hitter. Our pitcher stands her ground, rolls up her sleeves, and throws the pitch. The batter hits it, and the ball goes sailing. It shoots straight into the air, then comes down hard, straight at me. I go to catch it, it heads straight for my hands. It slides right between them. Right between my hands. I scramble to pick it up. Someone from my team, Shelly, is already shuffling over to me. I toss the ball to her, but by now the person on third already made it back to home base. The next person is almost there when Shelly throws the ball to home. She gets out, but that’s it, they’re a point ahead. Our turn to bat.

            Our best player has been batting all game. She’s completely worn. Elizabeth is out. A few of our other better batters had to go home, since the game is going over the time it was supposed to. The coach plays Shelly, then Jenna. Shelly gets out, but Jenna manages first base. She puts me at bat. The pitcher looks at me seriously, and then smirks.

            I hear someone yell, “Easy out!” in the background.

            “You got this!” I hear Jenna yell.

            I tighten my grip. She throws, I swing, the bat hits the ball and I let it fly out of my hands, but I don’t run. The ball has gone foul. She pitches again, this time I hit it, harder. It goes foul, again. I hit fouls until I’m on my sixth hit. The ball comes at me, I swing. I will it not to go foul, hope that I’ll have something to work with. The ball soars into the air.

            “Homerun!” I hear someone yell. It takes me a moment to process it. I should be running. No, I shouldn’t. I look out, and see my sister, standing up and holding the ball, like she’d caught it in the World Series.

            My team runs over to congratulate me. Jenna and I just made the last two points needed for us to win the game.

            “I told you we were our two best players,” I say as Jenna approaches.

            She smiles, “Yeah, but you got the order wrong, you’re obviously way better than me.”

            My family comes over to congratulate us and my mom offers to take Jenna with us to a pizza celebration dinner. She goes off to tell her parents she’ll be coming with us.

            “That was great, honey,” my mother says.

            “We’re very proud,” my dad adds.

            “Thanks guys.”

            “Rachel!” shouts my little brother. “That was awesome! First I thought that you wouldn’t be able to do it ‘cause you kept hitting fouls and the people in the stands were being so negative about it but then I was like ‘no there is no way that Rachel will strike out ‘cause she is the best softball player I know’ and then you hit a homerun and the crowd cheered and Roquelle caught the ball, and, and…”

            “Slow down there, Jack,” Roquelle says and gives me a congratulations-you-just-won-the-game-for-your-team-I-knew-you-could-do-it hug.

            Jenna comes up and gives me a thumbs up.

            I smile at them. “Let’s go get some pizza.”

           

            We sit at the large corner booth and await the pizza.

            “You know,” I tell my family, “Jenna would have never joined the softball team if I didn’t force her.”

            “Neither of us has ever played softball before,” she points out.

            “There’s a first time for everything.”

            “Well, it’s nice to be involved,” my mother says. “When I was in high school, I joined basketball, but not until my junior year.”

            “But she was so good they put her on varsity,” my father tells us, smiling at my mother.

            My mom laughs sweetly, “Your father is a big liar, they put me on the freshman team, but I could tell they knew I wasn’t good enough to even be there.”

            “Oh,” he says, “Now I remember, that’s why I went to all the freshman games that year.”

            They kiss and my brother makes fake puking sounds. Jenna, Roquelle and I laugh.

            “But you know,” my mother goes on, “The very next year I made the varsity team. My coach said it was the most improvement she’s seen in a player in her whole career.”

            “That’s awesome Mrs. Holly,” Jenna comments.

            The pizza arrives then. I dive for a piece of the Hawaiian pizza. To my left, my sister goes for the pepperoni. We all quickly begin inhaling our pizza. When we finish, we take Jenna home, and return to our house.

            “Remember, tomorrow is Roquelle’s track meet,” I remind my family.

            “How exciting,” my father says.

            “Yeah, I’m so excited,” she says sarcastically.

            I give her a light, joking punch in the arm and retire to my room. I pull out my math homework and quickly finish my last few problems. My phone begins to vibrate on the floor next to me. It’s a friend of mine, Carol, texting me. She invites me to hang with her and a few other people down at the beach. I swing around corners and let my parents know, they tell me to have fun.

            I change into my swimsuit and I walk down to the beach. I take the dirt path and the road as opposed to just going through the shrubbery.

            “Hey Rache!” yells Carol from the edge of the water.

            “Hey!” I call back.

            The rest of the group welcomes me: Rikki, Shelly, and Em. We stand at the edge of the water and let the water lap against our ankles. We gradually take steps forward until we’re up to our waists in the ocean. We lock hands, sinking down and popping back up in the water. Finally, we sink down in the water and relax.

            “Let’s surf,” Em suggests.

            “I didn’t bring my board.” I tell her.

            “I brought an extra one,” Rikki tells me.

            “Ooh. Surf competition!” Shelly yells.

            “Does everything have to be competitive?” Carol asks.

            “Come on,” I say. “Nothing serious, just a little fun.”

            “Okay, let’s do it,” Carol agrees.

            Rikki gives me her extra board. We all sit on the beach, judging each other one at a time. Rikki goes first.

            “I wish we had those whiteboard things we could write the scores on and hold them up,” Shelly says.

            “I have my backpack. We can use paper,” Em says.

            “I’ll take some,” I say, and she passes it out to everyone, with thick markers.

            Rikki finds her first wave and rides it, whipping the sides of the wave with her board. She takes three waves-the agreed upon number-and retires back to the beach. I write a big ten across my paper and hold it up. I notice everyone else is holding up 8’s-10’s as well. Rikki takes a short bow, and we move onto the next person, Em.

            “Don’t laugh at me when I wipe-out,” she says.

            Em is the newest to surfing, but we promise we won’t judge her. She doesn’t do too badly either, and doesn’t wipe-out until her last wave. I give her a ten, although everyone else gives her 5’s-8’s. She curtsies at us when she gets out of the water. Shelly goes next, followed by Carol, each receiving scores-I give them both tens-and bowing to us, their audience. I go last.

            “Alright Rachel, let’s see what you got,” Shelly says, taking another piece of paper from Em. I get up, taking with me the board Rikki is loaning me. Papers with various scores written on them litter the beach around them. None of them have flown away since at some point each paper got wet. That’s what happens when you sit right up against the water.

            “Hey, you guys should pick up all those papers,” I say.

            “Don’t worry about it,” Carol replies, “We’ll get them while you get out there.”

            I walk into the water, and when it gets deep enough, I lay down my board. I lay down on it and begin paddling further out. I tackle my first two waves with nothing special. The third wave I catch is the biggest I’ve seen all night. I paddle along with it, and almost don’t catch it. But I do. The water roars underneath of me, and I quickly stand up. There’s nothing like being propelled by a rolling wave, the power shoving you forward. The wave heightens until it is well over my head and forms a tunnel. I crunch down and ride through the tunnel, it is the first time I have ever done this. I close my eyes for a second, enjoying the cool mist blowing over me. I open them and come out of the tunnel of water. I laugh, and suddenly the undertow pulls my board out from under me. I wipe out.

            I hear the board crack, broken by the wave, and I am thrown underneath the water. I struggle to the surface, but bump my head on the half of the board that is still tied to my ankle. I panic, try to rip it off. I finally give up and maneuver around the board, trying to get above the water. I feel a second wave above me, unable to find air.

            I black out.