Marked (The Pack) (10 page)

“You’re welcome.” Brynna stretched to climb on her ski. “And I’m glad you’re able to recognize when you’re in the company of greatness.”

I groaned and started the engine to drown out Myles’ laughter, but he pulled beside me and grabbed a cord attached to the jet ski and clipped it to my life vest.

“Don’t forget your kill switch.” He shouted.

I nodded and made sure the switch was secure to my jacket. If I fell off, this would pull loose from the machine and make the engine go dead. Otherwise the stupid thing would keep going and crash, or even worse, make a wild turn and run over me.

For an hour we raced across the lake and took turns jumping the waves made by each other’s jet skis. Myles waved, and we followed him to the boathouse.

“Let’s play Bodinwa,” he said.

Brynna nodded. “Good idea, Myles.”

“So what’s this Bo thing?” I asked.

Myles and Brynna rode into the boathouse and began towing out weird pieces of equipment that floated. The first things they brought were cone shaped, standing from two to four feet tall. Each one had a rubber ball attached to the top.

“You could help, you know.” Brynna shouted.

I grabbed the rope attached to a tall pole. At the top an arm stuck out to one side with a plastic ring about the size of a saucer hanging from it. I pulled it near the rest of the equipment.

Brynna rode beside me when we returned to the boathouse, and we each took the rope of the largest item. It was a ramp, but at the top was one of the poles with the ring and one of the cones with the ball.

“Bodinwa is like an obstacle course game. You compete against each other’s time and score.” Brynna explained. Myles positioned the pieces in the water. He alternated the cones and rings on the left and right several feet apart. Then he attached weights to ropes that had been wrapped around the poles and dropped them in the water. These held the pieces fairly stable and kept them from floating away. When he set the last one, he waved for us to bring the ramp. We placed it at the end of the course where Myles hooked it to four posts that were anchored in the water. He snapped heavy cables with latches to hooks on the post.

“This one has to be steady and not move.” He said as he finished.

I banged on my ski. “So is anyone going to tell me how to play this game?”

Myles handed me a three-foot plastic pole with capped ends from the footrest of his ski. It was about the size of a broom handle, and I squeezed my hand around it.

“The object of the game is to race through the course using the lupin,” he pointed to the stick in my hand, “to knock the fint off the top of the sola.”

I studied the ball shaped things he called fints, which were on top of the cones, or solas.

“You also use the lupin to capture the jawa that’s hanging from the minwa.” He demonstrated by stretching upward to shove the plastic pole through the ring, obviously the jawa, so the minwa had to be the pole it was hanging from. I kept watching as Myles continued. “To get points for the jawa, you must have them with you at the end. You can’t drop them in the water.” Brynna rode slowly up to the thing called a minwa and stuck her pole through the round thing which came loose when she gave a slight jerk, then she grabbed the ring with her other hand.

I stared at both of them for a few seconds. “The game actually sounds good, but what’s up with all the weird names. I mean, come on, it’s a stick, a ball, a pole and a ring.”

“This is an ancient game that’s been played for centuries. In the beginning it was played on foot or horseback and was a way to train young warriors in sword play.”

I snorted. Brynna had to have a history lesson.

“How come I’ve never heard of it?”

Brynna pushed back her damp hair. “I don’t know. Maybe you were too busy playing tennis. It’s something we learned in school.”

“That’s enough history and arguing,” Myles interrupted. “Alexis, at the end is the ganza. You have to go up it and knock off the fint and collect the jawa. If you do that it’s worth fifty points. It’s very hard to do, though.”

I studied the ramp at the end of the course. Going up that thing would send you flying into the air. It looked a little dangerous.

“What’s the rest of the stuff count?”

“Each fint and jawa is five points, except for the ones on the ganza.”

“Don’t we need to tie these things down better? I know you put weights on them but they’re still moving.”

Myles grinned. “That’s part of the challenge.”

It sounded more like part of the impossibility.

“Come on I’ll show you how to do it.”

Brynna and I eased away from the course. Myles started at a not so fast speed toward the first ball thingy or fint. I didn’t know that I would remember all those strange names, but if that’s what they wanted to call them, it was fine by me.

Myles got most of the fints but missed a few rings or jawas. He gassed the machine harder near the ramp or ganza but missed both items at the top when he flew by. The three of them reset the course and Brynna took a turn. The pieces bobbed and floated making the whole game much harder. Brynna got very few of the fints but did scoop nearly all the jawas. At the end she skirted the whole ganza.

Myles leaned toward me. “You shouldn’t do the ganza, either. Brynna’s done it before, but not often. You need to practice riding the jet ski more before you take off on that. You could get hurt.”

I nodded. As they put the jawas and fints in place, I began to get excited. My skin itched to get going. Beneath me, the ski vibrated. I imagined it living and breathing like the horses Brynna had said the ancient warriors used to ride when practicing this course.

My first round through the course, I got one fint and one jawa, which Miles thought a very good accomplishment for a first timer and even Brynna didn’t make fun of me. We each continued to take turns, not counting points or competing against each other. By my third trip, I had gotten the hang of the game. On my fourth trip, I was swinging like a fighter and managed to get all the jawas and all but one of the fints.

The adults had come to the pier to watch, but I ignored the audience. I concentrated on the game instead. On my fifth try, as I waited for Myles to tell me to start, energy began to pulse through me. I felt, even believed, I was taller, stronger, bigger, faster. Everything I needed to fly through the course.

The world quieted except for the slap of the water against the jet ski. My body relaxed, and I thought I might float off the seat. I saw Myles say go rather than heard him. The ski took off even though I didn’t remember gassing it. By the time I got to the second jawa and fint, I was standing and driving with one hand. Everything seemed to be in slow motion yet my hair tugged at my head as it blew behind me. The last fint bobbed away from me on its floating cone. I balanced one foot on the steering handle, my body stretched to make an arching swing. Pop, the last fint went flying. Ahead loomed the ganza. I went straight for it, without a second thought. For a few moments in time I was someone else, someone different. The hum of the engine, the swish of water against the hull was all I could hear, not Louise shouting for me to stop. I was still standing as I went upward. Stretching, my arm flew and the lupin made a smacking sound against the fint. But I’d stretched too far. The jet ski went right and I went left, flying through the air. I hit the water with such force even my life vest didn’t keep me up and I briefly went under. Bobbing on the surface, slightly dazed, I saw the ski floating several yards away, dead in the water.

Myles pulled beside me and fished me out of the lake. “I’ll tow your jet ski in,” he said.

“Did I break it?”

“No, but your aunt wants you in the car right now, and I’m quoting.”

“I’m in trouble, huh.”

“Oh, yeah. But I have to tell you that was an awesome ride. I don’t know how you did it.”

“Me either.”

The rough wood of the decking bit into my feet when he deposited me on the pier. I glanced back one time at the fint and jawa missing from the top of the ganza. Aunt Louise stood by the car tapping her foot. I tried to put on a sorrowful face, but it was hard. I wasn’t sorry. That had been one of the best things I’d ever done. While I was swinging and racing through the course, I fit, perfectly. Like I was doing something I should be doing. But if Louise’s face was anything to go by, I wouldn’t be playing bodinwa for a long time.

Chapter Eleven

The drive back to the house was completed in silence. I reached for the door, wondering why Aunt Louise was so angry. It wasn’t like I’d broken the jet ski. Before I could get out, she latched onto my upper arm so tightly I imagined I could feel the skin bruising underneath her grip.

“Why would you do such a silly, dangerous stunt? Myles told you not to ramp the jet-ski. Brynna wasn’t doing the ganza, and even Myles wasn’t running at it full speed. But not you, you had to see how reckless you could be.”

“I wasn’t being reckless. I had control constantly.” I wiggled my arm, trying to let Louise know that it hurt, but she didn’t take the hint. “You’re really hurting my arm.”

Her hand fell away. “I don’t want you to do that again. You have to practice bodinwa and learn the correct way.”

“I did it fine and why do you know so much about the game?”

“Because it’s a sport in our schools, much like football or baseball. It’s played on jet skis, or even on horseback.”

“You’re kidding. That would be so awesome on horses. Do you know anybody who has one we could ride?”

Louise rolled her eyes. “Alexis. I’m trying to tell you how easily you could get hurt.”

“But I didn’t get hurt and I wouldn’t have.”

“You were standing up on a jet-ski steering with your foot. That’s an accident that’s not even waiting to happen. It’s on the verge of happening.”

“Was I really?”

“Were you what?”

“Steering with my foot.”

“You don’t remember?”

“Kind of, but not really. If I think hard and try to replay it in my mind I can see what’s happening. Only it’s a blur, like I was zoned out or something.”

Louise leaned toward me. “Like you were zoned out, or you were zoned out?”

I played with the door handle, not sure if I could put it into words. “The whole world shut down. There was only me and the course. I don’t remember thinking of getting all the fints and jawas while it was happening. I saw myself on the course, in my head, for an instant before I started and then my body did it, like pre-programmed. I can’t explain how I could do what I did, but it felt good. Do you know what I mean?”

Louise studied me. For the first time I saw her as more than my aunt. She was in her mid thirties and fit like an athlete.

“You’ve played bodinwa before, haven’t you?”

Gripping the steering wheel of the parked car Louise faced forward. “Yes, I have.”

“You’re good like me, huh?”

The dark head nodded. “But I still don’t want you doing that again. Mr. Branton can teach you some of the tricks and how to be safe, but not hot-dogging.”

“That’s not what it was, Aunt Louise. I did it because I knew I could. I’m not sure how I knew, but I did.”

The car door snapped open and Aunt Louise climbed out. Before I could move she’d bent back in so she could stare at me with her steely eyes. “Just because you
can
do something doesn’t mean you should.”

The door slammed and she strode into the house, leaving me sitting in the hot car. I’d only been here a week, and it already felt like a lifetime.

***

“What kind of bird will live in my house, ‘Lexis?”

A desperate one I thought, but pretended to study the seriously odd collection of popsicles sticks Jared had glued together. You weren’t supposed to have favorites or at least you weren’t supposed to act like you did. That’s what Aunt Louise had told me. But Jared, with his black hair and shiny dark eyes had attached to me the first day, and I had attached right back. We resembled each other enough to have been brother and sister, which I thought was neat because I was an only child and liked the idea of a little brother.

“I’m not sure, Jared, but I bet he’ll be really happy when he moves in.”

The boy nodded and glued on another stick. I glanced across to one of the other picnic tables where Channing was filing her nails while her kids did their arts and crafts project.

Channing had spent the past two days reviewing her weekend. While her parents had gone on a trip, her twenty-three year old cousin picked her and her shadows up and took them to New Orleans. Channing had offered to take me with them next time, but I doubted Louise would let me go. Maybe I’d ask anyway, next time.

I turned back to help one of the kids put paint on her birdhouse, and a shadow fell across the table.

“Hi, Alexis.”

Eric had appeared from nowhere and was now standing beside my table. My palms suddenly felt sweaty.

“Ummm… Hi Eric.”

Great,
Hi Eric
. Why couldn’t I think of an interesting conversation starter? Why couldn’t I think at all?