2|| Whispers in the Wind

4|| anger comes in many forms

Kalyani

"Alright, folks!" the coach barked. "I want five laps around all the tennis courts!"

Kalyani inwardly rolled her eyes. 'Folks'? Really? But she'd been assigned a task, and she supposed she had to complete it. The tennis courts were actually pretty wide, and were unknown to some of the students. As Evelyn Stone had said, "There are tennis courts here? I take track, and we literally have to run around the block."

She began her rather long run. Running never came easily to Kalyani, but to her sister, it was like a flick of the wrist. Aria normally played soccer, but she was a disaster at tennis. It was strange, since tennis required agility, which Aria should've gotten from years of soccer practice. Yet somehow things happen.

So this train of thought had urged her to go faster, and soon enough, she was at a point where she could see Arlo Daye and her sister, who were in some sort of running competition. They'd already done half of their second lap, while Kalyani was just finishing her first.

Uh oh. Not good.

There tended to be some sort of a natural disaster whenever Aria got involved in a competition. Either she got flattened or the other person ended up in the hospital. But the Arlo girl actually held her own. She was surprisingly similar to Aria, actually.

Kalyani watched as Arlo shoved Aria to the left, making sure she got the lead. But she knew her sister. Aria got right back up and almost sent Arlo reeling into the fence.

Aria. Arlo. Too many A- names.

The coach had gone temporarily blind, not noticing this scenario.

Kalyani picked up her pace, getting closer to them. She figured her best strategy would be stay behind them the whole time to see if anything worse happened. So it continued, the worst minutes of her life. Kalyani tolerated watching more shoving and pushing. When she looked back the next time, she realized the horde of kids were way behind her.

Feeling a twinge of satisfaction, she continued. But it was the last moment of the last lap that really irritated her. She heard Aria lean over and whisper something in the blonde girl's ear. She froze, and Aria took the lead. They were literally running. What was the big deal?

Leaving the gaping Arlo behind, she picked up her pace, overrunning her sister and completing first. The coach, regaining his eyesight, nodded approvingly. "Good job Chopra."

Aria finished soon in second, scowling. "What was that for? Arlo was being a jerk."

Kalyani frowned. "So were you. The last time I checked, you were the one who said something to her that made her fall behind. Stop blaming other people for what you're doing."

"B-but she- earlier today-"

Leaving her spluttering, Kalyani waited for the coach to say something. "Right, so I'll divide y'all into four by whoever finished first. The two Chopras, Daye, and..... McKinnon. Out to the last court. I'll be there in a bit. The rest of you get different instructors..."

The four of them headed down to the very last court. It was the closest to the forest that Kalyani and Aria had crashed into the other day. Well, mostly Aria, but still.

As promised, the coach stalked over. "Right, so we'll make teams. Twins, get separated. I'd say the one who came in first- Kalyani I think- team with Daye, and the other one team with McKinnon."

Wow, the coach really was blind. Kalyani thought it would be better to have Aria and Arlo on the same team so they wouldn't have to hit at each other. And worse yet, they both claimed spots diagonal to each other, meaning...