her face to look at her reflection in the toaster. There was a big red mark on her cheek. A perfect ripe raspberry of broken blood vessels. Her stomach hit the floor. “I got hit with a ball.”
“When? Is that why Coach took you out? Is that why you were crying on the bench?”
“No. It happened in warm-ups. I wasn’t looking.”
“Kearson …”
Kearson should have stood her ground. But she knew her mother would eventually disarm her, unspool her the way she always did. She simply ran to her room and locked the door.
Kearson dials back into the conversation. The girls are throwing out ideas for the next stanza of the Wildcat fight song. She murmurs the lyrics to herself.
Don’t mess with the Wildcats, we won’t accept defeat,
For we are the Wildcats, and we will not be beat!
Ali says, “Remember that sign when you first drive into Oak Knolls, about how they are the state champions? We could steal it and”—she shrugs—“I don’t know. Burn it or something?”
Luci says, “We do have to return Buddy anyway.”
“I don’t think we should make this stanza about Oak Knolls,” Mel says. “Tonight’s supposed to be about us showing Coach that we know what it means to be Wildcats.”
Kearson says, “What if we sneak into the West Essex gym and take a picture of us standing underneath the spot where our champion banner would have been?”
“I love it!” Mel says. “But how are we going to get inside?”
Kearson informs the girls, “The athletic director always keeps his office window unlocked. He hides a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray on the ledge so he can secretly smoke.”
The girls laugh. It is kind of funny to think of him being a secret smoker.
“Do you think it would still be unlocked? The school’s been empty all summer.”
Grace says, “He was in his office this week. I saw him when I was filling up the water bottles before tryouts.”
“Okay! So we’ll go in, take a team picture, and then get out. We still have one more stanza to do after this and then we’re going straight to bed! We have a game in a few hours!”
“Way to go, Kears,” Phoebe says, patting Kearson on the shoulder. Kearson beams like she’s just had a medal pinned to her chest.
It’s become clear to Kearson that her mother’s interference is what left her so vulnerable. In fact, she likely preferred Kearson to be weak, because it wasn’t like her mother tried to make her strong. With her mother, it was always the underbelly. The space she’s put between them has done Kearson wonders. But here, with the girls, she feels stronger than ever.
The girls drive over to the school. They park in the far parking lot and, after cracking windows for Buddy, creep like ninjas to the school, Kearson at the head of the pack. The building looks spooky at night, no lights on, all the windows turned reflective in the darkness.
“Don’t worry,” Mel says, helping to hoist Kearson up to the ledge of the athletic director’s window, which is only a little higher than her head. “Even if someone did call the cops on us, I’m like ninety-nine percent sure I could talk us out of it.”
The crazy thing: it feels true. When the girls are together, they feel invincible.
Her tennis shoes scraping the brick, Kearson scrambles up, then crouches in the small space of the window frame. Just as she suspected, there is a new pack of cigarettes and a little glass ashtray, which looks like it was swiped from a diner. With a few upward thrusts, Kearson is able to push the window open and climb inside.
She had been called into this office exactly three weeks after they’d lost the state championship.
The athletic director was behind his desk, and Coach leaned against a file cabinet in the corner, looking just over Kearson’s head, jaw clenched. Before either of them said anything, Kearson lowered herself into one of the two wooden chairs facing them and stammered, “I—I returned my varsity uniform before Christmas break. I put it in a plastic bag and hung it on the doorknob.” Because that’s what this was about, right?
Coach and the AD shared a confused look.
Maybe not.
“Also, please know that I absolutely do not expect a varsity letter.” She twisted in her seat so she was talking to Coach. Even if she technically earned one by playing those two games and also dressing, though not playing a single minute, for the championship, she didn’t