Natalie Peterson was a beautiful, intelligent and athletic teenager, but she hated high school for all of the right reasons. When she's bored, she smokes pot in the ghost area with her best friend Tamara Woods who's bullied by Gina, the hot popular...
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On Wednesday my teammates and I were ready for our first game. We were competing against one of the toughest teams in our district, team Eagles. We were the Wolves by the way. I didn't mention it before, but our coach even had new uniforms made for us, just for this game and on the back of our shirts was the illustration of the mighty wolf. I liked our name, our teammates, but despised our coach. Our coach would run his mouth all day about who the Eagles were going to kick our ass if we didn't run enough, pass the ball well and shoot like Koby Brian. Our ass was grass.
"Move it, Natalie! Pass the goddamn ball," Coach Carter said.
Before our first game though, there was a small prayer for Mrs. Krasinski and today's game, no matter what the outcome was dedicated to our former English Teacher who had died in the viscious attack.
"And may your soul be in Heaven, with the rest of our ancestors and may you rest in peace." We could hear then, a soft melody dedicated to our teacher and there was a huge photograph of the deceased Mrs. Krasinski. Her words were still in my memory. "Miss Peterson, you're very intelligent. So, why aren't you doing more... You should run for president of the class. Be in the honor society and create some sort of a club. You'll need to show your extracurricular activities for college." Poor Mrs. Krasinski.
Unbelievably, Gina Colter grabbed a microphone and spoke about Mrs. Krasinski for fifteen minutes. I didn't know how she came up with such a long speech, but I knew that she was full of crap.
"Mrs. Krasinski was a great teacher. She loved us all. She was there for us, helping us with our exams, quizzes and grades. She wanted to us to aspire to something better than ourselves..."
If Gina ever decided to be an actress, I was certain that she would win a goodamn Oscar.
"And over the years she became more solidary with all of us. She even created creative and imaginative ways for us to improve our grades when she decided to allow us to engage in a creative project for our Halloween dance..." Bla, bla bla. What an asshole. If everyone knew how mean she was, she'd be in a gutter. After her speech everyone applauded and cheered for her. Coach Carter said that the speech had touched him. Wow. What a moron, I thought, since Gina didn't really care about anyone, but herself. He needed to hear how she treated Tamara in the cafeteria.
After the speech, our game began. Abigail was center. She hit the ball and I immediately caught it. I was on the power forward position because I was usually capable of finding open spaces and because I always caught the ball on rebounds. My offense was a girl with braces who had bad breath, but a killer arm. I had to be extra careful. I passed the ball to Camille who was point guard and definitely, the leader of the team.
Camille shot at the basket and it went through. The crowd cheered. I saw Tamara sitting on the bleachers next to Preston, but Brad wasn't there. I played on. The Eagle girls were good players. We had to watch their hands because they passed the ball quickly and their strategy always surprised us. Abigail who was center and the biggest girl on our team blocked their point guard and they missed the basket. She almost committed a foul, but didn't.
"Pass the godamn ball," Coach Carter shouted at us. Kate passed the at me.
"I'm open, I'm open," Camille said. I passed the ball to her and she made the shot, but missed.
"Damn it!" Coach Carter yelled. I ran as fast as I could and kept my defense strong on my opposition. I noticed that she didn't have much ability to dribble on her left hand, as she did on her right. I tapped the ball and she lost it. Abigail ran to the ball, grabbed it and tossed it before it was out of the court. Kate caught it and ran back to our side of the court. She had been left alone and she took a clear shot for us. We were now on the league.
"Yes, goddamn it, that's how you shoot!" Our couch shouted. I was excited too. It felt awesome to play a good game and win, but as my eyes wandered to the bleachers, I noticed that Brad was still absent. Did he forget about my game? I tried to concentrate. I passed the ball to Kate who was shooting guard. It didn't matter where she was in the court, she just made into the basket and it was always a clean shot. She played like if she was a magician or something.
"How the hell did you do that?" I asked her.
"Magic," she shouted back. Was she joking? She didn't look like she was joking, but she had to be joking. The game went on, our team missed some and lost some. There were several fouls, but in the end, we kicked ass. Our game ended, Ninety to Ninety four. We had won by only four points, two shots.
We all cheered. Camille opened a bottle of water and she poured it all over Kate. Kate screamed and did the same and before we knew it, everyone was soaking everybody else. The crowds in the bleachers were shouting with joy, our part at least. The Eagles were gloomy and so were their spectators from North Washington High School.
"Good play," they had said to us and shakes hands. But we didn't play good, we played awesome, I thought. That's why we kicked their ass.
After our celebration, we went back into the lockers singing, We are the Champions. Our coach told us to settle down.
"You did good, but you need to improve. You're next game is next week and they'll be sponsors there," Coach Carter said. Camille heaved.
"Don't worry Camille, you'll do fine," I told her.
"Don't touch me," she said and left to a bathroom stall. Our coach left us alone.
"Is she going to be alright?" I asked Kate.
"She'll be fine," Kate replied. We didn't talk much after that. We were in and out our showers. We all went our separate ways. My mom couldn't be there, but Tamara and Preston were and my dad said that he was coming next week.
"You did awesome," Tamara said.
"Yeah, good game," Preston said.
"Thanks," I said, but I was wondering where was Brad.
"Was Brad... working?" I asked Preston. He shook his head.
"I haven't seen him all day," Preston replied.
"You haven't?" I asked him and Preston shook his head.
"Did he call you?" I asked him and Preston shook his head again.
"We have to go. I have tons of stuff to do for the Thanksgiving feast," Tamara said. I nodded.
"Can you take me home?" I asked her.
"Sure," she replied and took me home. I called Brad's phone, but he didn't reply and the next day, he didn't show up to school either. A few weeks went by and he didn't show. I knew by then that something was really wrong, but how wrong, I didn't know. I was about to find out.
