Won't be able to update for a while, unfortunately. I plan to have as much written as I can by the time I come back, though. Sorry, everyone.

Edit 2!
Part 15 has been posted!
/Edit

Edit!
Part 14 has been posted!
/Edit

Between my recent stomach bug and immense amounts of packing, I haven't been able to get much writing done for almost a week. Sorry, to everyone! That being said, I will still be writing the missed pages, and backdating them. They won't be finished immediately (I'm not un-nauseous enough to magic six pages of writing up at 4am) but I've got a nice long block of travel time tomorrow to work, so we'll see what happens.

Sorry again ;_;

Part 13 has been finished, for those interested. More coming! I promise!

I was so distracted by the memory of the crazy Libby that I didn’t hear the voice saying my name.

“Abby? Is that you?”

I turned around and immediately wished I hadn’t. “Hey, Jenna,” I said politely, suppressing a grimace. This day was not going well.

Jenna was at camp with me this summer. I realized three days into the camp how utterly different all the other girls were than me- did you know not owning blush is apparently a crime of epic proportions? I mean, honestly. Jenna had been in my cabin, and… well, it was hard to say. She’d only been overtly mean once; I’d gotten a mix CD from my dad and put it in the cabin’s player, but halfway through the third song she removed it and insisted we listen to “better music than this crap.” She hadn’t known it was from my dad, but she knew it was mine, and that I was desperately homesick, and I was still kind of bitter about it.

Stupid grudge, maybe .But I liked that CD. And she insulted it, and wouldn’t let me play it!

“I didn’t know you were coming here!” she said, sounding surprised. I considered glowering. She’d seen me at the revisit day, so she knew I’d gotten in. It wasn’t like I had a reason not to come.

Well, except maybe her.

Damnit. She’d said she was going to Porter. She probably came to SLHS just to spite me.

“I know. Surprise, right?” I replied, pretending to be cheerful. I think she picked up on my grumpiness, though, because she drifted off.

“Yeah, definitely. Well, I’ll see you later! Enjoy Playfair,” she called as she left

Scowling, I looked around for Laura (and presumably the rest of my dorm). I think what rubbed the worst was the fact that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find anything offensive about our conversation. I never could prove anything overt—even calling the CD incident an ‘incident’ was a stretch. But I didn’t like her.

The Cage, as it was called, was really just a large indoor gym the size of three volleyball courts. Laura was in a group of about ten girls by the middle net (or what would have been one, had they not been taken down for the event). They were also close enough to the wall that I didn’t feel like I was walking into a center spotlight when I joined them.

Everyone eyed me curiously as I walked up. I didn’t blame them, I guess, but it gave me butterflies in my stomach. I hate being the center of attention. “Hi guys,” I greeted them awkwardly.

A girl stepped forward and stuck out her hand. “Hey, I’m Erica,” she introduced herself with a smile. “What kept you?”

Deciding to take it as a joke, I shrugged. “Hi, I’m Abby. Just had to shower after soccer,” I explained. “Anything happened yet?”

“Lots of old people we don’t care about have been lecturing us on the virtues of Community and Bonding and General Other Bullshit,” she said, scrunching her face up in disgust. “Cause if left to our own devices we would all become hermits.”

“Totally!” Another girl agreed. “SLHS: St. Luke’s Hermit School!”

I laughed, but for once it was a real laugh and not something I created to feel less awkward. I could definitely see myself as a hermit.

“What do you think, would a long white beard look good on me?” the second girl continued, and struck a pose pretending to stroke a non-existent beard.

“Only if it had short sleeves,” Erica informed her with a grin. “You don’t have to rub your New England roots in our face, you know.”

“Yes I do!” her companion informed her, trying to look innocent and failing. “Haven’t you ever seen that email about New Englanders in the cold?”

“Lisa, I am not from New England. I am from New Jersey. Any such email would probably be meaningless to me,” Erica pointed out patiently.

“You know. At 100 below zero, Santa abandons the North Pole; New Englanders are just frustrated that their cars won’t start?”

“New. Jersey.”

“Pah, New Jersey. Pah! Oil and petrochemical refinery state,” Lisa said dismissively.

“Miss Congeniality!” I exclaimed, catching the reference.

“Nice call,” she said approvingly. “Awesome movie, right?”

“Definitely,” I nodded agreement, beaming. Sandra Bullock as the beauty queen detective might be implausible and cutesy, but I liked it. It gave me hope that I might escape the glasses-with-braces shadow that haunted my elementary school years.

“Movie night tomorrow, then? It’s a Friday… you know you want to…” Lisa wheedled, looking at Erica.

“I’m so in,” Erica agreed instantly.

I wondered if I could invite Laura. Was it rude to ask if she could come along?

It wasn’t my room, but I wanted a familiar face…

I hate social dilemmas.

I repressed my urge to run back into my room after leaving my sports gear in the area under the stairs Helen had showed me on my tour. I wasn't ever going to make friends if I just hid in my room. It was just... scary. I didn't want to be stuck in another conversation about sports.

But as I made my way back upstairs, I realized that the dorm was strangely quiet. It was only 5:00 or so, dinner hadn't started yet...

Aw, hell. Playfair.

I wasn't actually late, since it started at 5:30, but I wasn't going to be early, either. Clearly the rest of the dorm freshman had decided to head over early. Or they'd been walked over. Whatever. Either way, I was later than they were and still had to shower and change.

It was possibly one of my fastest strip-downs ever. I was out of my gear in five minutes flat, which was probably a record for me when wearing shin guards. I charged into the bathroom wearing only a towel and carrying my bath supplies, and trying not to think about the fact that I'd left my shower shoes in my room.

Someone was already in the shower when I got to the bathroom; the water was running and the lights left a silhouette on the curtain- not explicit, but I wasn't exactly comfortable with it. I averted my eyes and picked one of the remaining two stalls for myself.

"Yo! Who's there?" A voice came drifting out of my neighbor's shower.

"Um, I'm Abby. A newb?" I answered. It seemed extremely weird to talk to someone while in the shower, but maybe that's what people did here... and not answering would have been rude. I hoped using ‘newb’ wasn’t offensive in some way.

“A newb? Wicked! So where you from?”

“New York…?” I told her cautiously. It seemed weird to ask where someone was from before asking what their name was. Maybe that was just me.

“Wick-ed! How’s the upside down state treating you?” the other girl gushed.

“Upside down?” I asked, confused. I didn’t think there was a right side up to start with.

“Well, duh. I’m from Vermont. New Hampshire’s upside down,” the girl stated cheerfully. “Everyone knows that!”

“Of course,” I agreed nervously. I hadn’t known that.

“Oh, right, duh. Totally spaced. I’m Libby. Call me Lib,” she added. “What’s your name?”

“Abby. Abby Spencer,” I said. By this time I felt clean enough to turn off the water and get out of the shower. “Lib” was clearly not a freshman, and so under no time pressure, but I was.

“Wait, Abby! Look, look, look!” Lib’s voice stopped me as I was heading out of the bathroom (ok, running away). She seemed to have far too much energy for one person, and having just spent two hours running around, I wasn’t feeling very energetic. But she was an upperclassman, and I didn’t want to irritate her, and it seemed like the easy way out to turn around and look at whatever it was.

Mistake on my part.

Lib was jumping up and down with the shower curtain pulled tight across her chest. That close to her, and with the shower light’s angle, the curtain was not staying opaque. At all.

“You can see my BOOBIE! Isn’t it cool? Look, boobies!”

“Awesome,” I agreed weakly, and fled.

So maybe I should’ve answered her. But it was just so WEIRD. My brain was refusing to process it.

I mean… who did that?

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten dressed and out of the dorm so fast. I just wanted to get…away… and so I was at Playfair in about five minutes flat.

It helped that it was right across the street, of course.

But then, whatever happened, it couldn’t possibly be worse than Shower Girl.

"So what're your winter and spring sports?" Helen continued as we walked.

"Well, I'm going to try out for squash in the winter and tennis in the spring," I informed her shyly. My shyness was for once not due to me being socially clueless; this time I was just embarrassed at my answer. Too many racket sports for one person, or something.

"Hey, that's cool. How long have you been playing?" Helen wanted to know.

As we continued to discuss my racket-bound sports history, I realized that I had very little desire to be friends with Helen. Don't get me wrong, she seemed nice enough. But...single-minded. Sports, sports, and sports. I could handle a bit of sports talk, but I suspected that Helen and I would run out of things to say to each other almost immediately if we ever tried to have a conversation past social chitchat.

Particularly if it meant I had to pretend to like baseball.

Still, I didn't want her to hate me or anything. And she was being nice enough to walk back to Bartlett with me and keep me company. I had no reason to blow her off.

After she'd asked me a few more questions about tennis, I started to get the feeling that she was running out of questions and I was running out of answers. I always seem to be the one who answers questions rather than asks; and then I feel guilty for not keeping up my end of the conversation. Guilt already setting in, I asked Helen about her own sport teams.

"I don't officially play a sport in winter; I'm the men's varsity hockey manager," she said proudly. I suppose it was some sort of achievement for her? I wonder what one has to do to become a manager. "In spring I play lacrosse. It's awesome!"

I played lacrosse once in middle school, as a required three week sequence in Physical Education. I was terrible at it. I actually did better when they gave me a leftie stick by accident.

"It's always more fun when you have a team," I supplied instead. True, and not anti-lacrosse.

"Which is why soccer rules, right?" she asked, and winked at me.

I smiled and nodded. It seemed like the thing to do.

“So what position do you play, again?” I finally asked her, desperate for conversation. I had a decent memory of her kicking a ball at me, which meant she was on offense, but at this point I’d have asked her where babies came from if I thought it would keep the conversation going.

“Striker, if I can. Left if I can’t,” she told me smugly, “but usually striker. Why?” It must be something about strikers, but they always seem to think they’re the most important player. The concept of “team” sports must not have reached them quite yet.

“It’s good to know where my teammates are, is all,” I supplied weakly. It was a decent enough excuse, but not one I’d be pulling out again anytime soon. Goalies were supposed to know where their teammates played, but also be flexible enough to adapt to situations. Unless your team was flawless (which would be something akin to a miracle) people were going to get mixed up. You’d wind up with three defense and six forwards, or your entire team playing sweeper, or everyone in the center or the left or the right. Goalies who didn’t know how to adjust were goalies who didn’t win very many games.

We lapsed into an awkward silence that seemed to stretch out on and on and on. I was just about to blurt out something, anything, to break the awful emptiness when I realized we’d made it back to the dorm. I’d been so caught up in feeling awkward I’d barely paid attention to where we were going.

“So, um, thanks for walking back with me,” I thanked Helen politely, though without much enthusiasm. It had been nice of her to come with me, but a sports conversation interspersed with uncomfortable moments wasn’t my idea of a fabulous time. If there’s one thing I think I do well, it’s telling the truth without telling the whole truth. Judges would hate me. But I did tell her the truth- it was nice of her to walk me back.

We just didn’t have the world’s most electrifying conversation.

I could’ve walked inside the dorm with her, but I had no desire to extend the tongue-tied feeling I was getting. Instead, when we walked inside and into the stairwell, I walked immediately downstairs.

“Hey, where ya going?” Helen asked, peering over the staircase after me. “Is your room down there?” She laughed. I didn’t think it was particularly funny, since only the laundry room and storage room were downstairs and she knew perfectly well I wasn’t in either. But I laughed anyway. I didn’t want to give her a reason to dislike me. It would make for bad team dynamics.

That’s what I was telling myself, anyway.

“Just putting my cleats downstairs so they don’t smell,” I informed her.

“Aw, what’s a little smell,” Helen said dismissively. “Just stick ‘em in a sports bag or something.”

“Won’t the bag smell, then?” I asked. Correct response: yes. And then your father gets upset and starts spluttering uncontrollably and insists that you dispose of the bag immediately.

…purely hypothetically, of course.

“Whatever. Same applies,” she said lightly, and disappeared upstairs. I breathed a sigh of relief.

She was a nice girl, but she wasn’t going on my list of People to Befriend any time soon.

The rest of practice was more of the same. Run, dive, get covered in mud, get kicked, get up. Repeat, repeat, repeat. As the defense warmed up they got better, and I had to adjust to having a functional player in front of me. At home I’d played for the B team because I couldn’t make A team practices; no one held it against me, but it meant I was used to playing goalie and all four defensive positions.

This being a varsity team and all, it was a profoundly useless skill. It was more detrimental than anything, since I positioned myself differently than the other goalies (who came from more defensively competent teams) and it often left the goal wide open.

As we went through various drills, the feeling of relative equality I’d gotten at the beginning of practice had worn off with a vengeance. I wasn’t as tall as Caitlin, I wasn’t as large as Hannah—being skinny is not an asset in a soccer goalie—and I had smaller hands than both of them. Combined.

My father bought me the smallest size of adult goalie gloves once. You could fold the entire top inch of the glove’s fingers down without once touching my fingers. After that, we returned to children’s sizes. Hannah, on the other hand, looked to have one of the largest sizes of women’s goalie gloves on the market.

It’s like a math problem. Bigger person + bigger hands = better goal coverage. Geometrically, I was at a disadvantage from the start.

It occurred to me at the end of practice that I really didn’t like the team that much. No one had really said anything to me, or each other. I’m sure that this means that they are Intense and Dedicated, but… team spirit? General friendliness? When did that go out of style?

Though I really had no leg to stand on; I hadn’t exactly gone around and introduced myself. But if staring awkwardly at the ground counted as being friendly, I was definitely the school’s new social butterfly.

Helen came up to me at the end with the girls who’d greeted her in a cluster behind her. I recognized one of them as Jess, because she’d been one of the first to introduce herself, but that was the only name I came up with.

“Hey Abby, can you find your own way back? We’re going to go say hi to some people,” she explained, looking awkward. I guess she felt like she was abandoning me or something (which she was) but I didn’t really care. It was more insulting that she thought I couldn’t find my way back to Bartlett. Um, yeah, it’s about a two minute walk, with only one turn in it. Obviously far too complicated for my limited brain.

Not.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” was all I said to her, smiling at her anyway. I didn’t really think she’d meant anything by it. Helen seemed more like she was trying to watch out for me than to be condescending. Just because she did both didn’t make her a bad person.

I left the water bottle on the bench next to the coach while he was talking to one of the other players. I saw him see it, but because he was still talking I didn’t have to face another lecture on forgetting my water bottle. Cowardly but effective. As soon as he turned back to his conversation, I hurried off.

As I headed back, one of the team members spotted me and walked over to join me.

“You’re Abby, right?” she asked me. “From Bartlett?”

“Yeah,” I answered. I hadn’t the faintest idea what her name was, and my face must have said so, because she introduced herself.

“I’m Helen. I’m in Bartlett too. Want some company?” she offered brightly.

“Sure,” I agreed immediately. I knew she hadn’t introduced herself as a sophomore; I couldn’t remember if she was a junior or a senior, but either one made her an upper-former. And from what Helen—my big sister Helen, Helen Mason—had said, newbs were nice to upper-formers. Complete with the implied Or Else.

“Goalie, huh? I wouldn’t want that position. Tried it once, took a ball to the face and never went back,” she reminisced. “So you’re in my dorm, huh.” It wasn’t a question. “You gonna watch the next Red Sox game?”

Years upon years of Yankees versus Mets rivalry in school warned me that this was not a simple question about when I would be in front of the television. If I took the side of one team over hers (and it was pretty obvious where her loyalties lay) I was going to be off her cool list forever.

So my options were three: say yes, say I supported a different team, or tell the truth. I felt that lying would be a bad way to start out the year, and from experience it wouldn’t get me in as much trouble as being as Yankee or Met fan would. So I went with that.

“Probably not. Too many Yankee/Met fights in my school turned me off baseball.” This was stretching the truth a bit. It was true in and of itself, but I also thought that baseball was totally boring after the first inning and not worth watching. That would definitely not go over well, though. “I watch hockey with my dad instead.”

“You don’t like baseball?” Helen sounded horrified. Pretending to be a Sox fan might have been a better option. But then I would have had to come up with plausible reasons for being a New York Sox fan (of which I was pretty sure there were none), and information about the team. Or at least demonstrate a general knowledge of baseball. I really don’t know anything about baseball.

“It’s not that,” I lied nervously. “It was more self preservation at school. And no one in my family watches baseball. At least my dad watches the Rangers with me.”

“I guess,” Helen said, still sounding skeptical. “You have to try at least one game, though. Move past those crappy New York teams and watch a real team play.”

One thing I did know was that the Red Sox hadn’t won the Series in the last 80 years or more, and the Yankees won six of the last seven. It didn’t seem political to mention that, however. “I’ll try a game, sure, now I’ve got people to watch with me.”

I knew there was no other correct answer to her question, but all of me was wishing there was. I’d just committed myself to watch an entire baseball game; not just one inning, but all nine.

I was going to be so. Damn. Bored.

A character list is in the Links menu now! The full list in order of appearance, with very short blurbs, is at the top. Then there's two lists at the bottom for quick viewing; Bartlett residents and members of the soccer team. Of course, these are only the people Abby knows. It would be a massively awful soccer team if it only had 8 people.

(And I totally didn't realize until I wrote it up that Abby's met two people from each grade on the soccer team, counting herself. I guess I'm as chronically organized as her mom, even by accident.)

I survived warm-ups, which impressed me. I’m sure it impressed no one else, but running is possibly my least favorite activity in the world. Running laps, therefore, is not my strong suit. Everyone always thinks this is very weird for someone who wants to make varsity soccer, but why do they think I became a goalie in the first place?

Stretching was blissfully consistent with any other sports team in existence. We stood around the edge of the circle in the center of the field. The captains counted off ten seconds for each stretch, then yelled the next one. As a bonus, this system neatly prevented me from having to actually talk to anyone.

Once we were done, the coach walked—though pounded would be a better word—to the center of our circle and glared around at all of us equally.

“I am Coach Perez. Introduce yourselves quickly, name and age and dorm. Then divide: offense in the center of the circle, defense on the far side, goalies on the near side. Quickly!”

Very friendly, isn’t he, I couldn’t help thinking, but I didn’t dare say it out loud. Instead, I tried to focus as people went around and said their names.

“I’m Jess Stewart, and I’m a junior in Barker.”

“I’m Anna Riosso, also from Barker. Senior.

“Kara, senior, Mirwell.”

By the time they reached “Ella, sophomore, Catt 2” I had totally lost track. The only two I retained, besides Helen because I already knew her, were the ones who had been introduced as the other goalies.

“Hannah, a freshman in Catt 3.”

“Caitlin. I’m a sophomore in Dover.”

Helen had mentioned in her letter that the team’s old goalie had graduated, which was the only reason I was trying out; no team would take on a second goalie when they already had one. So I assumed both the other girls were also new. I knew St. Luke’s took a number of new sophomores, and that her getting wasn’t a huge feat I should be intimidated by… but that meant my emotions would have to listen to logic. I was intimidated as hell.

The fact that the other freshman was at least four inches taller than me and probably about twice my weight wasn’t helping calm me down any.

Dividing up was easy, but dull. Caitlin, Hannah and I were all in roughly the same area on the near end of the circle, so we only needed a few steps to get to our appointed locations. But the goalies are last ones the coach notices. Every time. So Coach Perez had to talk to all twelve offensive players and send them off places, and all ten defensive players, and then he finally got to us.

“Here,” he said curtly as he handed me a water bottle. “Return it after practice.”

I blushed to have been caught without a water bottle in front of what was basically my competition. Without bothering to question where it came from, I put it on the ground (though that was mostly to lean forward to hide my bright red face).

“It’s a basic drill to start. Two offense against one defense, and you. Switch every four pairs,” the coach ordered us, and walked back to his bench.

Well, no one said you had to be talkative to coach soccer, but wow. Just wow.

I quickly discovered that this was exactly like soccer camp. I never went to a soccer camp for more than five days—the whole not wanting to run thing interfered—but it was still essentially the same. You still stood around and waited until it was your turn briefly, then stood around while the defense failed to do anything at all, then banged yourself up diving for the ball.

I think I got more banged up than the other two, though. I seemed to get kicked more, certainly. Since I was the same size as Caitlin and half the size of Hannah, this did not reflect well on me, and had the downward spiral effect of slowing me down to the point where I’d get kicked again.

On the plus side, getting kicked usually meant I had the ball and they were kicking for it, so I guess there’s worse things. Missing the ball, for example.

By the end of the drill I was covered in grass stains but feeling slightly better about myself. I thought I’d held my own. I’d blocked around as many balls as Caitlin or Hannah had. And I only had to beat out one of them, since Helen said Coach wanted a backup goalie as well.

All I had to do now was survive until after the coach made cuts, and I’d be on the team.

Then I thought to myself, Varsity team = running.

I really didn’t know if making the team was exciting any more. Not that I had any choice.

I slept in the next morning, waking up blissfully happy at almost noon. Most people come back from summer vacation nice and rested; I always seem to go back to school more exhausted then when I started. Not that summer school helps any, I’m sure. But I didn’t have class and my father wasn’t around to complain that “the day is almost over!” and so I slept in. Let them think what they would of sleeping in. It didn’t matter to me any more—I was at boarding school now. And I was sleeping in as late as I wanted.

So there.

My newfound defiance did not extend to ignoring the phone when it rang ten minutes later. At that point, I did not actually have pants on yet, and I was only half done brushing my hair. This meant that half of my head looked normal and the other half looked like a bird’s nest had exploded on top of it. Twice. Regardless, when my parents called—and it had to be them, since they were the only people who actually had my phone number—I returned to being the good daughter and picked up.

“Hello sweetheart!” my mother gushed. “How was your first day?”

“It was fine,” I told her vaguely. To be fair, I wasn’t fully awake yet.

“Fine? What does fine mean? Fun? Are the people nice?” she inquired.

“I hung out with the girl across the hall again and then went to bed?” I answered, confused. What did she want? I hadn’t really done anything of note. Fine really did sum up my night.

“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. Do you need anything?” my mom asked me, for the second time in twelve hours. Sadly, that was fairly restrained, for her.

“Nope, I’m ok. Thanks though. I do need to go to lunch, though,” I pretended to fret. I was neither hungry nor in any particular rush to eat, but I really wasn’t interested in a long conversation with my mother before I was functionally awake.

“Oh… well, go eat then. I’ll talk to you later, though,” my mother ordered rather than asked. I made a noncommittal sound and hung up. I was quite sure she’d call me without any encouragement, but that didn’t mean I should give her some.

I considered my options. I could go to lunch like I’d said, but the contrary part of me didn’t want to. I could try to find something to do on my computer, which would probably mean a game of some sort. Or I could go out and attempt to socialize.

The last option was by far the least appealing, but it came with a strong feeling of “you should be doing this, you know.”

The computer won.

Two hours later I’d successfully completed three Zoo Tycoon scenarios and very little else. I’d managed to find a pair of pants at some point, but my hair was still making me look like an escaped lunatic. I was about to start a fourth game when I saw my alarm clock, realized that I only had twenty minutes until soccer practice, and panicked.

I made a token attempt to calm my hair, but in the end I twisted it back into a ponytail and prayed no one would notice. Changing into sports clothes was relatively quick, but my soccer equipment… just no. It’s an unwritten rule that you never try to put tube socks over shin guards quickly. It’s kind of an oxymoron. Quickly just doesn’t happen. When I was dressed, I grabbed my goalie gloves and ran out of the room and up the stairs to Helen’s room.

After all, I certainly didn’t know where I was going without her.

She’d been standing outside her door waiting for me. “Come on, we don’t want to be late,” she said hurriedly, and sped out the door with me trailing frantically in her wake. She was almost three inches shorter than me and her legs had to be even more than that, given her proportions; regardless, keeping up with her was a challenge. One that did not bode well for tryouts.

Luckily the field was nearby. We crossed the road my parents drove in on, then jogged across a bridge and there we were. There were about twenty people already there, but nothing seemed to be happening yet.

Helen was recognized by a number of the girls there, and they ran down to say hello and give her hugs. She was too swamped to introduce me to all of them and I was feeling shy, so I walked over to the bench where there was a more manageable group of three people.

One of the girls sort of reminded me of a former schoolmate, Lauren. She was a little taller than me, with dirty blonde hair in a ponytail and intense gray eyes that made me want to run right back to Helen. The other girl was like no one I’d ever met. At my old school, I was one of the tallest girls, but we were all skinny. This girl was taller than me (it didn’t happen often, but it did happen) and she was huge.

I don’t mean huge in a bad way, though… it was more that she must spend all her spare time working out, and it showed. She was just an athlete. I looked at my pencil-sized arms and legs, gulped, and sat down on the other end of the bench.

The third person turned around at the noise, and I immediately identified him as the coach. He was middle aged, and he was a man. Not a difficult deduction. He was also Hispanic, and looked very fierce.

“Your water bottle! Where is your water bottle?” he demanded.

“Um… in my room…?” I admitted even as I realized it. Drat. I always forget the blasted thing.

“Next time, you will bring it, or you will leave. Sit.” He eyed my goalie gloves. “You are the last goalie, then. You three get to know each other. I will find you a water bottle.” And with that he stormed off in the direction of the equipment pile.

The other two girls eyed me, and I eyed them right back. Now the coach had (sort of) introduced them, I focused on their goalie gloves.

“Hi?” I said faintly. I was feeling very, very small. Or weak. Or both. My ability to make the team was suddenly very much in question.

The problem with hanging out in Laura’s room, apart from the overwhelming sense of room-inferiority I was getting, was that she was still unpacking. I’d had my Resident Crazies (my parents) to obsessively unpack for me, but Laura’s parents were safe and snug in their nice warm state down South. So I was sitting on Laura’s bed awkwardly while she ran back and forth around the room, carefully placing things into drawers or hanging up her dresses. And I was feeling very useless, but she refused to allow me to help. Considering how much I hated my parents ‘helping’ me unpack, ok, that was fair. But… useless! Very useless!

In the end, I resorted to exactly what I’d been trying to avoid. “Hey, um, do you want to maybe watch a movie? You could unpack while you watched,” I suggested. Movies hadn’t gotten any more social since I’d last considered them as an activity, but at least I’d feel like I was doing something. Sort of.

“Oh, that’s ok, but thanks. I don’t want to stay up too late. We have to go running early tomorrow so we’re done by Playfair,” she answered quietly (having your head stuck in a closet will do that, though).

“Playfair? Um… that sounds familiar…” I let my voice drift off, because it didn’t sound familiar in the slightest but I didn’t want to admit I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Kelly told me about it. Everyone’s here by 5pm tomorrow, so that’s when we have Playfair. It’s a bonding thing,” Laura explained.

Bonding games. I was not excited by this description at all. “Bonding games” always seem to require explaining to people what my favorite ice cream was. And if I don’t care what their favorite ice cream is—and I really, really don’t—I don’t see any reason why they would care what mine is.

My face must have shown my overwhelming lack of enthusiasm, because Laura laughed and hastened to assure me that it wouldn’t last that long. “And anyway, there’ll be better stuff to do tomorrow night,” she added.

I was now feeling completely uninformed, but hanging on her every word so that I didn’t miss out on anything else. From my vast experience of a few hours with her, Laura didn’t seem like she’d laugh at me for not knowing our schedule. She was too…proper, I guess the word would be. In keeping with her very elegant appearance. I might just be judging her by her outfit, of course, but I’d rather take my chances with her than with total (well, less than three hours acquaintance) strangers.

“Ok, so, what’s tomorrow night?” I asked, looking (and feeling) sheepish.

“Tomorrow night is dorm bonding. Fewer people than Playfair and better games. At least, that’s what Kelly said,” Laura answered. “I really don’t know that much about it, I’m sorry.”

Well, at least I wasn’t the only one. “It’s ok. I’m sure I’ll find out tomorrow.”

“That’s the plan,” Laura agreed. “I just wish it didn’t involve early morning practice.”

“Yeah…” I replied, thinking back. “My practice isn’t until 3, though.”

“That’s much better,” Laura said. Rather after the fact, but maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I just essentially gloated about my afternoon practice. Great job, Abby.

“Yeah. Um… I should let you sleep?” I hadn’t intended it to be a question, but my voice sort of disappeared upwards until it was. Now I sounded desperate for company; while that was entirely true, I’d rather not be quite so blatant.

Laura was very nice about it, though. “Probably. I’ll see you at lunch though?”

“I’ll try to find you,” I promised. I had absolutely no idea where the cross country team practiced, when Laura’s practice was over, or when I was waking up. All things considered, “trying” to find her seemed the much safer bet.

“Sounds good. I’ll see you then,” she nodded.

I returned to my room and checked my watch. It was barely 9pm. With a sigh of sheer boredom, I grabbed my computer and logged into Neopets.

So all my friends had stopped playing in sixth grade. What did I care? It had flash games and I had nothing better to do. Destruct-O-Match it was.

And then Meerca Chase.

And then Neopian Invasion.

I was playing Pteri Attack when I finally fell asleep around 10. My last thought was how massively ironic this was. I’d felt stifled at home with a 10pm lights out, and usually hid in the bathroom to read after I was “asleep.” I’d picked St. Luke’s because it didn’t require students to go to bed at a particular time.

And as soon as my parents were gone…

I was asleep by 10pm.

If there is in fact a higher power, it was probably laughing at me.