Listen Between the Lines - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Fifteen

I felt anything but playful as I barked last minute orders at my team. "Defense, stay. on. them. The water should slow them down, but you probably won't be able to capture any of them. If you hear splashing, you attack—oh, and also"—for the slightest second I thought about Matt as my brother and not as the captain of the opposing team—"try not to let Matt drown."

"Got it," said one of the boys who wasn't Collins.

I turned to my second in command. "You take half of them north. I'll take the rest south." Scout nodded as I told the rest of them, "If you see the flag you take it and run, but keep it visible—no pockets or anything. We're not gonna lose on a technicality, got it?"

"Got it," they called back, already splitting up into teams.

"And whatever you do, don't get caught. We're outnumbered enough already."

"C'mon," a boy with jet black hair said like I was pulling his leg. Like this was all a big practical joke. "They're just a bunch of girls."

No one argued and no one knocked this boy on the back of the head like I so badly wanted to. I realized for the first time that night that I was leading a group of boys. A group of boys who thought that nature had made them just a little bit stronger, just a little bit faster, and just a little bit cleverer than girls. Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be such a terrible thing if the other team won. "Find me again in ten minutes and then tell me if you still have that opinion."

Then I heard Matt's voice again, echoing over the dunes. "Come out, come out wherever you are!"

"Go, go, go," I hissed to the boys, and just like that, the game was on.

I took my grab team south like we'd planned. I had to trust that Scout knew enough about what he was doing to tell his team to "Stay as close to the tree line as possible," like I did. I had to trust that Scout knew a lot that I hadn't gotten the chance to say. In the end, really, I just had to trust Scout.

But Matt trusted Scout, therefore I did too.

"Stay low," I told them. "If someone looks this way, you freeze."

I tried to guess at what was happening on the beach. Maybe they had already found our flag. Not that we'd made it particularly difficult on them—that was kind of the whole point. Still, I felt my heart flutter as I worried that I had made a mistake. Matt and his grab team were probably already trying to get past our defenses, meanwhile their flag was nowhere in sight. To be honest, I hadn't expected it to be so hard to find. I mean, how many hiding laces could there possibly be on a golf course? Apparently more than one might think.

But then I remembered our makeshift buoy. I thought about Matt and how he would curse me as he realized that our flag was bobbing up and down in the waves, twenty feet off shore. I thought about Kay, who was not a foolish girl, but had foolishly worn a sheer white shirt that (I hoped) she'd be too embarrassed to get wet in front of the boys.

Which left Alice, who wouldn't let her seventy-three bobby pinned hairdo get in the way, but hopefully the rest of her team would be hesitant enough that our defense could focus on her and neutralize the threat.

But even with all that water between our flag and our enemies, I knew that we had to capture their flag sooner rather than later.

I looked over my shoulder to check on my team. In the back, one of them had pulled their glow stick out. I let out a rough sigh, overwhelmed by the idiocy, because hiding in the shadows is sort of completely pointless if you bring a light with you.

I whispered to the boy closest behind me who happened to be one of the boys that I sent to scan the beach. "Take the lead. Keep an eye out for the flag."