The Flyer

CHAPTER 10

Cc: Cheers to unity. Yeah, right.

VALYRA.

So recap: Calvary and Wilson basketball and cheer teams are stuck together and are expected to get along.

Kathilla isn't giving me good vibes and her fellow teammates seem to be more inclined to follow what she does. I looked at her carefully and concluded that if she was going to treat us like this, we weren't gonna treat them the same way. 

"Girls," I smiled a little. "Come here."

"Valyra," Jaymie whispered. "She scares me." 

Hestia and Ylleria nodded in agreement. "I'm personally not like scared of her but her possible capacity to tear us down," Ylleria muttered. "She seems like a person who doesn't care about consequences at all."

"Let's just see how it goes."

We walk up to them in a line and introduce ourselves. I didn't smile because I wouldn't have meant it. Kathilla, who was in front of the her group, hesitantly introduced them to us. More like begrudgingly, that is. That girl had some serious issues.

"Look, I don't care that they put you as the leader, my girls and I will leave if you so dare to give us a hard time."

I put my arm akimbo. "I don't care if you leave, but don't you dare think so low of us," I gave her a look. "The way I see it, you have some personal grudge against our school, so don't take it out on us, okay? Okay."

We walked away from them and settled on a spot by the bleachers to watch the boys instead.

I wasn't close to the basketball boys because they were pretty distant to the cheer team and we often practiced on the field rather than in the court, but they were friendly enough to be on good terms with and hang out with every once in a while. Seeing them here today felt like seeing them on court pre-game-- energizing and exciting. It's really been a while.

"Valyra Baron, right?" Maze, Calvary's shooting guard, approached me, holding a basketball like he was ready to play a game. He looked at the girls and beamed. "Hey."

"Hello," I grinned brightly. "What's up? You excited?"

He laughed and shifted the ball. "I am. Don't, uhhh, worry about Kat. She doesn't bite, and she's actually nice." He laughed nervously. "Sort of."

"I'm Oliver," a raven-haired guy introduced himself. "I've seen you girls around. Mostly, you, Baron."

"Yeah, right, dude," a blue-eyed giant came up to us. "You totally don't sound like a stalker."

Ylleria spoke up. "What's your name, blondie?"

"Tayrowe."

"I love your name!" Jaymie gushed.

Hestia turned up from her phone. "How do you spell it?"

"Tay then--"

"Row?"

We all burst out laughing, and Ylleria, who had said that, blushed a sunburnt pink.

"Guys!" she whined, "Not funnyyyy."

Surprisingly, Tayrowe was quite a soft guy. His eyes softened and he smiled gently. "She's right though," he confirmed, "But like it's rowe, as in in r-o-w-e."

"Oh!" 

That's pretty cool.

Calvary's basketball representatives were chill and nice. I'm glad they, at least, welcomed us. Our boys joined us eventually, too, but the Calvary girls never did.

It turns out that a lot of Calvary students saw our school as  a bad guy because the rumors were that Wilson only sided with Calvary to look good but was actually in connivance with Olympia and Madden.

"Why are you guys being nice to us, then?" Kol, our center/ point guard, asked. "Like not that I don't appreciate it, man, but why?"

"It's not your fault. That was years ago, dude," Maze said. 

"Yeah," Oliver agreed. "I mean, we were probably barely middle schoolers then. Why should that incident affect us? Besides, one of my friends transferred to Wilson and I don't like her less because of it. It's immature to dislike people just because we dislike their school's history."

Walter, our shooting guard, grinned. "Well, as long as you keep your cheerleaders on a leash, I'm sure we'll get along great!"

"Our cheerleaders? Oh! You mean Katie?" Oliver asked with widened eyes and snorted. "Pfft... don't tell me she threatens you?"

"She doesn't threaten us. Her vibes scream disagreeable," I corrected. "We don't want to work with someone who would just ruin everything at the end. Plus, she seems to have good influence over the other girls."

Tayrowe took the ball from Maze and did a little dribble. "Let's be real. Kat's really nice to her close friends, but if she doesn't like you, she'll be really..."

"Annoying?"

"Yeah, that," he agreed with Maze. "Really annoying."

But something about the look on their faces told me it was more than just petty hatred for a school because of some old rivalry. Oliver called her Katie while the others called her Kat. He said he had a friend who transferred to our school. What if Kathilla hated our school because she saw it as the school she lost her friend to?

Hmm... That's quite intriguing...