The Fanfiction

Chapter 9

"Alright, everybody! Let's hustle now!" the gym teacher shouted as the whole class was finishing up the warmups, which were intense enough to actually warm a person up. We all rushed up to the teacher, who was going to explain how we were breaking up for volleyball teams.

"Okay, I want everyone to find a partner. I will form teams by putting together groups of partners," she said, and everyone promptly paired up. Race and I paired up, seeing as I was the only person he knew. We were broken into teams and the game began.

As usual, I promptly began to fail miserably at the game, as did much of my team. Somehow, though, we were staying close behind the other team score wise. I looked around and realized that the best player on our team was Race, to my surprise, seeing as volleyball had only been invented in 1895, and he had come here from only four years later, not giving him much time to learn it.

The game was played, and we still lost, although it was much closer than normal. My team cheered for Race like he was a hero for making it a less embarrassing defeat, and when he finally got through the crowd to me, I joked, "Now you are the King of Volleyball and the King of New York." He laughed and claimed any skill came from trying to get cigars back from Albert and strength or power from carrying around papes. 

The bell rang, and we parted ways until after school, when we all met up and walked to the lower school to grab Winnie before going home.

On the way home, Winnie was probably the most chatty, and the others almost all seemed eerily quiet. Sensing some sort of upset, I asked, "So, who wants to go get ice cream?" Nobody really cheered up at that, but who can resist ice cream?

We ordered ice cream and then went to sit at an outdoor table. It wasn't until we sat down that I asked, "How was everyone's day?"

"It was good, but I can't believe some of  the boys here! They think I'm dumb because I'm a girl, even if I know more than them on a subject. It's annoying," Katherine said, which was a different response from earlier for sure.

"It was fine, just different," said Eponine passively.

"I liked it when it wasn't math," Cosette offered as her answer.

"I only have one teacher who isn't as boring as my brother," Jesse declared.

"I think I'm indifferent about it," said Jack, shooting a look at Katherine that said "Did I use that word right?"

"This school is great! I'm already making friends, and they aren't older than me! No offense, Jesse," Winnie said, and from looking at Jesse's expression, we could tell he was not offended.

"My day was just another first day," Sami sighed, clearly done with school already.

"My day would have been better if somebody hadn't been laughing at me all day," Race said, and, from the way he looked at Sami, they weren't going to be speaking anytime soon.

We finished our ice cream, and Sami went straight home, which never happened on the first day of school.

A little while later I got a message from her.

Samster: Hey

Elliephant: Hey

Samster: Do you and the girls want to come over?

Elliephant:  Let me ask the girls.

I went and asked Winnie, Eponine, Cosette, and Katherine if they wanted to go over. I had already decided not to go over, I was sort of annoyed about how she was acting around Race, and about how she just went home instead of coming over like usual. Winnie wanted to go, but Katherine felt how I did about the events of earlier, so Eponine and Cosette offered to take Winnie over, not wanting to ruin the middle schooler's day over some high school drama.

After the three of them headed over, Katherine and I went up to the boys' floor to visit Race and Jack. We both wanted to hear the full story from Race; we both knew he didn't really express emotion like that unless something was real. 

We got to there door, where I knocked gently. We heard someone say we could come in, and headed into the room. Inside, Jack was sitting on his bed and Race was sitting on the floor next to it. I sat down on the floor across from Race, and Katherine sat down next to Jack, predictably. 

We all just sat there silently until I found the courage to break the ice. "So, Race. I know this isn't the most pleasant topic to discuss, but what happened today? I'm asking as a concerned friend. You guys didn't have problems during the summer," I said gently. After a moment of quiet, Race began to speak.

"I don't know what happened. The second we walked away from you this morning, Sami became a real jerk. She would laugh at and mock me when I asked questions, and would sit in mock shock when I got an answer right. She stopped during lunch, and when she apologized, I thought it was done happening. After gym, however, she got right back to teasing, and when I asked her why, she said that I was stealing her best friend," he explained to the three of us. 

I was enraged by what had happened. True, I had been spending a lot of time with Race, but we would almost always invite her to come. And I would still spend time with her just one on one, so it's not even like she lost that. Why would she say that he was "stealing me?" I moved over so I was next to Race and just gave him a sort of awkward friend side hug, which seemed to put him at ease a bit. We sat there in a sort of solidarity, and I didn't even notice Jack and Katherine leave the room or myself falling asleep sitting there.