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When Leah had finished suiting up, she left the noisy locker
38 | Leah
room and went into the girls' gym. The gym was empty except for one
other freshman girl who was sitting on the floor. On Wednesday, all of
the girls had been assigned specific points on the floor (the freshmen at
one end of the gym and the sophomores at the other) for the
convenience of roll call and to give everyone space during calisthenics.
The other girl didn't say anything as Leah, on her way to her own spot on
the cold, hard floor, walked past, but Leah did notice that the other girl,
who was blonde and a little chubby, glanced back in the shy girl's
direction a couple of times as they waited for the rest of their classmates
to join them. Leah didn't know the girl's name. She was one of her many
new classmates who had gone to a different middle school.
The rest of the class slowly began to file in, and when everybody
was in their assigned places, the coaches entered and called roll. Leah
didn't like roll call because each girl had to shout "Here!" when her name
was called, and Leah, naturally, didn't shout very well. Shouting was
necessary, though, because of the gym's sheer size and because the
sophomores at the other end were shouting too as they answered their
own roll call. The coach called the names alphabetically, never looking up
from her grade book. Leah held her breath and waited for her name.
"Nells!?" the coach eventually shouted. Leah thought it was silly
that she had to go by her last name in phys. ed. while in every other class,
her teachers simply called her "Leah."
"Here!" Leah squeaked, as loudly as her voice would allow. The
coach didn't look up from her grade book as she made a mark next to
Leah's name.
After roll, and after the girls completed their calisthenics routine,
the freshmen's coach, in her usual authoritarian manner, declared, "OK,
we're going outside today and you girls are gonna do some running!" The
announcement was met with a chorus of moans and groans from the
class. "And don't whine," the coach shouted, annoyed. "This is easy.
Everybody out the door! We're going to the football field!"
The more experienced sophomores, who had already completed
their warm-up exercises, were exiting through the gymnasium's side door.
The freshmen stood up and followed them. Most of the freshman girls,
J.M. Reep | 39
including Leah, had no idea where the football field was, but the
sophomores were apparently heading in that direction too, so they
followed them. As they approached the field, Leah saw that it was ringed
by a running track. The girls assembled on the track, and immediately
took the opportunity to split up into their own little cliques so they could
talk to their friends. Leah stood off to the side by herself and waited for
the coach who was trailing slowly behind them. The sophomore girls had
already started running around the track. Leah watched them and saw
that a few of them weren't really running but were instead just jogging
very slowly. She wondered how long they were supposed to run. She
knew that she wouldn't be able to run or even jog for the entire class
period.
When their coach finally caught up with her class, her aggressive
voice pulled Leah's attention away from the sophomores. "OK, girls,
listen up!" she yelled. "We're gonna do a twenty minute run-walk! Now, I
don't care if you walk most of the time, but I don't want to see anyone
standing still, is that understood? Go!"
All the girls began with a moderate jog, but it wasn't long before
a few of the more athletic sophomores, who were still running at a brisk
pace, overtook them. Leah wondered how those girls could keep running
like that for so long. The freshmen continued jogging until they were
halfway around the track, the farthest point from their coach, and then
they slowed to a walk. Leah was thankful for the chance to slow down
because she was already out of breath. Once again, the girls broke up into
their cliques and talked to their friends as they walked. Leah made sure to
walk just a little bit faster than the rest of them so that she could be by
herself. A couple of minutes later, as she completed her first lap around
the track, she saw both of the girls' coaches standing off to the side
talking. Every now and then one of them would validate her presence by
urging the girls on. "Come on girls, walk faster! And stop talking this
isn't social hour!" they would yell, before they themselves went back to
their own conversation. Even though their comments weren't addressed
to her specifically, Leah always obeyed and quickened her pace for a
moment before slowing down again.
40 | Leah
After a few minutes, the freshman and sophomore girls had
formed a thin circle around the circumference of the track, and the two
classes intermingled with one another. Leah's faster pace brought her
closer to a clique of seven sophomores who were walking very slowly
and chatting amongst themselves. Leah moved to the outside lane of the
track in order to pass them. As she did, she could hear them talk, and it
seemed their attention was drawn to an event on the other side of the
field.
"Where is he?" one of the girls asked. "I can't see him."
"I don't know, maybe those are the freshmen," a second girl said.
"Oh! There he is!" exclaimed a third.
Curious, Leah turned her head so she could see what the other
girls were looking at. She saw a line of boys running from their
gymnasium towards the soccer field just beyond the football field. They
seemed as eager to run as Leah and her classmates were on this day, and
they had to be spurred on by their own coach, who was barking orders to
the boys to run faster. At last, they reached their destination and
clustered together in the center of the soccer field.
"I still can't see him," the first girl whined.
"You can't see him now," explained the girl who had spotted the
elusive boy. "He's in the middle of the group." She was squinting hard
and held her hand above her forehead to block out the sun.
"Who are you talking about?" asked one of the girls who had
been quiet until now. Leah had been wondering the same thing and was
glad there was someone to ask the question for her.
"Rob. Who do you think?" replied the second girl.
"Oh." The answer was apparently sufficient for the other girls,
but it didn't give Leah much information. Leah looked into the crowd of
boys, which was starting to disperse and divide into teams for whatever
game it was they were going to play. She wondered which one was Rob
and why he was so special.
The first girl spoke again. "He's got phys. ed. this period too. He
told me that he'd say hi if he could."
"Do you think he will?" another girl asked.
J.M. Reep | 41
"He's gotta see us first," said the second girl. "They're not even
looking in our direction."
"You know what we oughtta do?" suggested a girl who had been
walking just three steps behind Leah. Leah hadn't noticed her and she
was startled when she heard the voice behind her. "When we reach the
other side of the track, we should all yell 'Hi Rob!' and embarrass him!"
The girls giggled. "That would be great!"
None of the girls actually had the courage to go through with
their plan, but Leah didn't know this. All she knew was that she didn't [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]