Gabrielle's Bully (Young Adult Romance) (2 page)

“I wonder if Mike will call while I’m here,” Barbara said.

Mike Dalton was her current flame. He was a friend of Jeff’s, which made me very leery around him. He didn’t seem to have Jeff’s tendency to make fun of people, but he was always on the fringes of Jeff’s circle. I hadn’t made a decision about him yet.

“Your mother or Margie will take the message,” I said. “Come on, Barb, let’s get started,” I added, holding up the math book.

She sighed and flopped on the bed next to me. “All right. Might as well get it over with.”

We did homework for about an hour, and then talk turned to the upcoming basketball tryouts. We debated the merits of the various girls trying out for the team until it was time for Barb to go home.
 

I fell asleep thinking about Heathland Lindsay.

Chapter 2

Barbara and I had been on the basketball team two years already, spending freshman and sophomore year on the junior varsity. This year would be the first on the varsity, if we made it.

No one can understand why I’m so good at basketball. It isn’t as though I’m marvelously coordinated in general—when I try to play tennis I charge around after the ball like a wounded antelope, and my attempts at gymnastics are even worse. Last spring when I crashed off the parallel bars, knocking down three of my classmates and spraining my ankle, Miss Aynsley told me with a smile to confine my athletic pursuits to the basketball court. It seemed like sound advice.

Being on the team gives some status at school, but it’s not in the same league with being a cheerleader, for example. Daphne Morris is a cheerleader. She’s always running around in her little skirt with the adorable kick pleats, posing decoratively, America’s Junior Miss. Mrs. Morris gave me a ride home from school one day and asked me why I wasn’t a cheerleader. I didn’t mention the fact that I would probably kill myself trying to do one back flip, but only said that I didn’t have the time because I was on the basketball team.

She looked at me as if I’d said that I was on the sky diving team.

“That’s nice, dear,” she commented, and the topic was dropped.

Tryouts were being held in the big double gym. It has a folding divider which can be pulled across to separate the halves. When it is opened, the gym is divided into two playing areas, closed off from one another. The selection of the boys’ and girls’ teams would take place on the same day, on either side of the manifold door. Barbara calls it the Great Wall of China.

Barbara and I, and a few others, were almost assured of making the team because of our past playing record, but we had to go through the motions anyway. As Miss Aynsley barked orders, we dribbled and passed, did layups and foul shots, pivoted and guarded. She tested us individually and in groups. After about an hour, she called a halt and told us the list of the first team and the alternates would be posted the next day.

Barbara and I walked off the floor to shower. We weren’t worried.

“Hurry up,” she said to me as she made a face and tossed a pair of ratty socks on the floor. “The boys’ tryouts didn’t start until later because Mr. Crawford had to monitor detention first. Let’s go next door and see what’s happening.”

I knew what was on her mind. Mike would be there.

Barbara continued to pull dirty gym clothes out of her locker and stuff them into her vinyl carryall. I hoped she was planning to take them home and wash them. Her locker was a no-man’s-land of sweaty T-shirts, crusty bloomers rolled into balls, and other unpleasant items. I fully expected to find a dead body in there one day. Barbara reminded me of the heroine in an old movie I’d seen on television a while ago. It was called
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
, and the main character was a girl named Holly Golightly. Her apartment always looked like a bomb had just hit it, but she emerged every day from the chaos looking perfectly groomed and dainty. That was Barbara.

We walked out into the hall and climbed the stairs to the rows of seats overlooking the gym. It was the shortest route to cut through the balcony to get to the other side.

Miss Aynsley would not let anyone watch our practices, but Coach Crawford didn’t mind as long as you kept quiet and didn’t call out to the players. We crept in on little cat feet, and sat carefully, not making a sound.

Barbara was not disappointed. Mike Dalton was there, practicing layups, a terry cloth sweatband holding back his curly brown hair. He saw us taking our seats and waved. Barbara smiled happily.

She tapped my arm. “Don’t look now,” she said under her breath, “but that new boy is here. Over by the door to the locker room.”

I followed her gaze and saw him, dressed in navy track shorts with
Wilbraham Academy
stenciled on the leg. He was doing a dribbling drill by himself, palming the ball behind his back, passing it through his legs. Even at a glance you could tell that he knew what he was doing.

“Well, well,” Barbara hissed in a stage whisper, “surprise, surprise, surprise. This should prove to be interesting.”

I had to agree. Jeff and Mike might be in for some unwelcome competition.

Heathland Lindsay left his corner and walked past us, getting on the end of the line to take a shot at the basket. He had a neat body, strong and slim, with broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, and long, muscular legs. I had never really noticed that before.

Barbara was apparently thinking the same thing, because she said, “Wow. Check him out. That outfit does a lot more for him than those weirdo clothes he’s been wearing.”

“Restrain yourself, Barb,” I said. “You’re here to see Mike, remember?”

“I can
look
, can’t I?” she said grumpily.

Mr. Crawford arrived and got things underway. It was easy to see that Heathland Lindsay was very good, at least on a par with Mike, and possibly a comer for Jeff’s top spot. Heathland was a deadeye; he never missed a shot.

Clearly, Jeff did not like this one bit. When Mr. Crawford paired Jeff and Heathland off for one-on-one, Jeff clenched his teeth, his jaw tight.

The two were evenly matched. The tiny tricks Jeff used to outsmart his usual schoolboy opponents had no effect on Heathland. He wasn’t in awe of Jeff the way everyone else was. Barbara had always said that Jeff’s reputation was as much responsible for his success as his skill. But Heathland had just moved here and he didn’t know that Jeff was unbeatable.

Mr. Crawford blew his whistle and announced that they were to continue playing while he went to his office for his score pad.

As soon as Mr. Crawford left, Jeff’s tactics changed. He started playing rough, charging, dancing around and waving his arms in Heathland’s face. A referee would have nailed him for a foul in a second. But nobody in authority was watching now, and Jeff knew it.

Heathland continued to play calmly, showing more tolerance than I would have if someone were doing that to me. Jeff, irritated at Heathland’s lack of reaction to his razzing, finally stuck out his foot and tripped Heathland as he moved in for a jump shot.

Heathland sprawled headlong on the polished hardwood floor, smacking his face on the corner of a bleacher. Blood spurted from his nose.

Barbara stood up. “Did you see that?” she cried. “Jeff tripped him!”

“Sit down,” I said to Barbara. I didn’t want to get in the middle of this. Everyone watching had seen what Jeff had done, Barbara didn’t have to be the star witness. She has her faults, like everyone else, but when she thinks she’s right she’s ready to take on the Congress, the Cabinet, and the President. I knew I was a coward, but I didn’t want to wind up on the wrong side of Jeff Lafferty. His legendary charm vanished when he was crossed. He could be pretty mean.

Heathland got to his knees, wiping at his nose with his fingers. Jeff stood by with his hands on his hips, smirking. All the other players had stopped, frozen, waiting to see what would happen. The onlookers were silent too.

Heathland stood up and said, “If you want to fight, I’m ready. Come on.”

This was all the invitation Jeff needed.

Heathland stood his ground, ducking and dodging Jeff’s punches expertly. He waited for his opportunity, and the first time Jeff let down his guard he socked Jeff squarely on the jaw. Jeff went down as though felled by an ax.

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Barbara breathed, next to me. “He’s a boxer, too. He handled that like a pro.”

The gym exploded in an excited babble, and Mr. Crawford chose that moment to return. When he saw Jeff, stunned, on the floor, and Heathland standing over him, dripping blood onto his clothes, Mr. Crawford closed his eyes and sighed.

“All right, what happened?” he said, doubtless wondering how he was going to explain leaving this group unsupervised during an athletic activity. There was no shortage of volunteers to relate the story. Heathland remained impassive, making no attempt to defend himself, letting the others speak for him.

“Let’s go,” I said to Barbara. “You can wait for Mike outside the locker room.”

I practically had to drag her away. She hated to miss a dramatic moment.

We hung around until Mike came out with Dave Fletcher, and Barbara went over to talk to him. I stayed behind, reading the bulletin board. I didn’t know Mike very well and hadn’t a clue what to say to him.

I looked up to see Heathland walking out of the locker room, his gym bag in his hand. He paused in the hall, and I saw him tilt his head back, sniffling. His nose had begun to bleed again.

I felt so sorry for him that I didn’t know what to do. He was at a new school where he didn’t know anyone, and had tried out for a team, maybe thinking it would help him to be accepted, to belong. Instead a bully had jumped on his case and forced him into a scene.

I fished in my purse for my tissues, and, not stopping to think about it, walked over to him, extending the packet.

“Here, these might help,” I said.

He blinked at me in surprise, and then took the package, pulling out a few and holding them to his nose.

“I’m Gaby Dexter, I’m in your trig class,” I said. “I saw what happened in there. I hope you didn’t get into trouble.”

He studied me. His eyes were green, or gray green, sort of hazel, I guess, with long sandy lashes. Up close, he had a tiny mole at the corner of one eyebrow, and a faint scar on his chin. Why, he’s cute, I thought. He really is.

“No,” he said. “The other kids told Crawford what had happened. Lafferty said it was an accident, and Crawford let us both off with a warning.”

That had been an accident like the bombing of Pearl Harbor had been an accident.

“Hey, Gaby,” Jeff’s voice rang out behind us. “Who’s your friend? Can’t you do better than that?”

My gosh. Just what I needed. If I lined up with Heathland me Jeff would never forgive me. I would be the next target of his maliciousness.

I turned away from Heathland, not looking at him.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said lightly. “I never saw him before in my life.”

Jeff’s laugh was my reward. I went out the door, calling after me, “Come on, Babs. My mother will be here at four-thirty.”

She said goodbye to Mike and trailed after me, coming to stand on the steps.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments. Finally she said, “That was a rotten thing you just did. You should have seen poor Heathland’s face.”

She didn’t have to tell me that. I knew it. I felt a flush of shame staining my skin. It didn’t make me feel any better to know that Barbara would never have done such a thing. She would have taken Jeff on in a minute. But, I thought, she also has the security of being Mike’s girl. Jeff wouldn’t persecute his buddy’s girlfriend.

I was nobody’s girl. She couldn’t possibly understand.

* * *

All that night, I couldn’t seem to put the incident out of my mind.

My mother noticed it, of course. She watched me push the food around on my plate at dinner, while Craig chattered and my father stole glances at the newspaper between bites. When I was helping her clear the table, she said, “Gabrielle, what is bothering you? Something’s wrong.”

I have a lot of trouble keeping anything from my mother. She seems to see into me with x-ray eyes. It wasn’t long before I was pouring out the whole story.

“Well,” she said when I was done, wiping her hands on a dishtowel, “you must be pretty ashamed of yourself.”

I nodded miserably.

“That’s something, at least. What you did wasn’t right, but you have the grace to feel bad about it.”

That didn’t help much. “What do you think I should do?”

She unplugged the electric percolator and started taking mugs out of the cabinet over the sink. “I think you should apologize to this boy.”

Somehow I knew she would say that. The very thought of it made me go cold with nerves. How could I face him again?

Mom saw my expression. She shrugged, reaching for the jar of sugar. “You asked for my opinion, and that’s it. But you have to do what you think is best.”

I took my coffee into the den and sat staring at it until it grew cold. Then I got up and reached for my purse.

My philosophy about doing something you don’t want to do is this: get it over with as soon as possible. If I waited until school on Monday this would be driving me crazy all weekend.