Flower

Chapter 9: Flower

Raven had us huddled up.  There weren't very many girls here, which was quite sad. As we huddled up, a grey mass lumbered over to us.  It must have been Rhett. Raven signaled for him to come here and then pulled a round tin from her pocket.

            "Here, smear this on your faces." She instructed as she passed it to Jane. Jane was one of the only popular girls that played. There were a few others that Jane had mustered up, but otherwise that was it. Our team was very unfair compared to the opposing team which had just about all the boys in the whole school. I had no idea how this was going to be pulled off.

            When the tin came to me, I looked inside to see what exactly we were smearing on our faces. It was black shoe polish. This would be fun to get off. I dipped my finger in and smeared it under my eyes anyway and then passed it to Whitney who was smiling.

            Rhett had changed back to his human form and was standing next to Whitney. The two of them were grinning their heads off.  I wondered if they were in a relationship, but I suddenly scourged myself for even thinking that.  I packed the idea in an imaginary box and stored it away.

            Once everyone had smeared shoe polish on their face, Raven left to retrieve our flag from the head referee.  While I we waited, I had spotted a camera and waved like a child. 

            "What are you waving at Flora?" Betty came up to me and asked. I pointed to the camera. Betty waved as well.

            "The whole school can see us!" Rhett’s face was covered since he was facing away from the camera, so it looked as if Whitney was talking to a girl with a boy’s haircut. Raven returned and we headed deep into the woods to hide the flag.

            "I wanna hide it in a really tall tree. They'll have to have a bird to find it." Raven said. Nobody disagreed since nobody had another idea. Raven changed and flew up to a tree to hide it.  When she came back down, we lined up on an orange line that was spray painted there.

            "Raven, what do I do?" I shouted. I still didn’t know what I would be able to do in this game. In the back of my mind, my conscience kept chiming in, saying that you should have never have done this.

            "Could you lay some vine traps? They'll be hidden in the brush so the boys won't know what hit them." Raven grinned devilishly.

            "Yeah!" I smiled.  This would be fun.           

            "Good, do it when the gunfire goes off." I nodded and prepared to run. We waited silently for the gunfire to sound. Whitney, Jane, Rhett, Betty, Raven and the others had already changed to their animal so I was the only one that was still human. I was sort of jealous that I couldn't change into an animal. I felt really awkward in class when everyone would change for fun.

            The gunfire had still not been sounded when something rustled loudly in the brush.

            "What the hell?" Raven swore behind me.  When did she change? Raven sauntered next to me and listened. Whitney padded over and brushed against Raven's leg, letting her know that she was there.

            "WAIT!" A girl's voice yelled like a two year old. A flash of black curls and I knew who it was. I wasn’t mad or scared, I was confused. Just a week ago, I was at my old school and so was she. Betty had blamed the flower incident on that girl.

            That girl. I didn’t even know her name. All I knew was she was a freshman who was obnoxious. I remembered she had tried out of the fall play and did a terrible job of the part the director had given her to act out.  I also remember she was flirting with Jase, who, as usual, looked uninterested.