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"Gabriel! Gabe!" I called. "I
forgot all about the meeting. Wait up." I
hurried toward him.
Z"What meeting?" he asked, when I reached him.
"Shhh."
lHe glanced over his shoulder. "It was just an
excuse."
0"Oh. I get it," he said.
X I suppose it was the terrible self-
consciousness I felt and a lot of pent-up
frustration: I laughed like a hyena. "No, you
don't. You're as clueless as I
am, at least about
some stuff."
¤"Girl and guy stuff? I know more than you
realize," Gabriel replied. "Oh,
really."
6 "For instance," he said, glancing behind us
again, watching Flynn who was
talking to two cheerleaders. "I know your cheeks
aren't that pink because of
me."
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***
10
Either Flynn was a little slow to catch on to
Breeze's idea of time, or he
thought he could retrain her. Wednesday evening
he showed up twenty minutes
early for his study date with Breeze. He found
himself entertained by me and
Mrs. Klein, who spent most of the time muttering
about the fact that Breeze
would miss the dinner she had so carefully
prepared. Then Flynn joined me and
Dad as we sucked down the soggy noodles of an
unbelievably bad tuna casserole.
Perhaps his large serving of Tuna Delight helped
Flynn to see the situation
more clearly. On Thursday evening he and Breeze
had their first phone
squabble, the topic being his refusal to
114
Npick her up before Friday night's game.
ð From what I could hear, as I bent over my
biology book at my bedroom desk,
Flynn wanted to be in the locker room early with
the team. And he had come to
realize he couldn't count on Breeze to be ready.
Breeze, of course, was
insulted. Her voice rose the way it used to with
Jared. "But you're not even
playing! ... What difference does it make? ...
Seifert's a control freak!"
¸ Friday evening Breeze hitched a ride to the
game with Kathleen, Jenny, and
me. She wasn't a happy camper, especially after
Kathleen made her put her
makeup on in the girls' bathroom, rather than
the newspaper office. "In
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that6 lighting?!" Breeze gasped.
6Kathleen smiled and nodded.
D Gabriel and I hooked up and headed over to the
stadium. We discussed the
game, what we expected to see in the opposing
team, et cetera, but he seemed
preoccupied.
"New shirt?" I asked, just before we parted at
the sideline. Gabriel always
wore the same tannish one to games, an L.L.
Bean-type like mine.
º"Uh, yeah, I guess so," he said, looking down
at it, as if he had forgotten
what he'd put on.
âBut he hadn't, I could tell that by his voice,
so now I stepped back to study
the shirt. It was black with silver
115
Vlettering: BALTIMORE FILM FESTIVAL. "Cool."
üHe shrugged as if the shirt was insignificant--
he was a terrible actor--and
headed across the field toward the players'
bench. Film festival, I
thought.( Jenny. Could it be?
%7Å„ I was mulling over this possibility when I was
suddenly attacked from
behind. Two sets of short arms wrapped around my
hips. I looked down and saw
that my ambushers were wearing tiaras. "Princess
Meg ;n Princess Emma. You're
looking quite stunning tonight."
°I took several photos of them while they told
me their news: They were
getting a kitten.
n"If it's a girl, we're calling her Princess,"
Meg said.
B"And if it's a boy, then Prince?"
z"No, Fang," said Emma. "Flynn gets to choose,
if it's a boy."
Æ I kept the girls with me until Mrs. Delancy
caught up with them, as I knew
she would. When I turned back to the field, I
was surprised to find Jenny
standing on the sideline, her straight black
hair blowing and shining in the
breeze. At games, Jenny enjoyed watching the
people in the stands more than
the athletes. She didn't pursue kids like Paige,
trying to wheedle gossip out
of them; she just watched them like--well, like
she was viewing a movie.
"What's up?"
116
"I was thinking about after the game," Jenny
said. "Want to go out and get
something to eat? If Kathleen doesn't want to,
you and Gabe could just come to
my house, and my mom could drive you home
later."
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Me and Gabe ...Ô Her cheeks colored as she
spoke. If she started wearing a
T-shirt that said ESPN ZONE, I'd know for sure.
"Okay."
¦ I watched Jenny skip off to find Kathleen, and
I sighed. The team captains
gathered for the coin toss, I lifted my camera,
and sighed again. I must have
been sighing loudly when Gabriel materialized at
my elbow.
D"I wouldn't give up yet," he said.
:I turned to him. "Excuse me?"
N"I think we're going to win this game."
¬"Oh. Right. By the way, Jenny said she'd like
to get something to eat after
the game."
p I peeked sideways at him, but his face showed
no expression, and he
carefully kept his eyes on the officials and
players at the center of the
field. "You mean with just you?" he asked.
TGabriel would never have thought something
that¤ dumb last year. "Yeah, Gabriel, just me
and Jenny and Kathleen. No boys
allowed."
&He nodded solemnly.
117
l"I'm kidding you. Kidding! With all of us, of
course!" He's in deep, I
thought.
fHis face brightened. I sighed, this time,
silently.
> "You know I can't help but respect Flynn,"
Gabriel said. My eyes shifted to
the opposite side of the field. Flynn was
standing with Gavin, his
replacement, talking and gesturing, looking like
a coach. "He's been working
hard with Gavin. He's there every day at
practice, coaching him and being
positive. Flynn's really a team player. You
know, I can get kind of cynical
about jocks, but he's really a great person."
"Yeah," I said.
Gabriel turned to me. "What's wrong with you?
You sound depressed."
$"What's wrong with
me?"° I shot back. "You're the one wearing a
strange T-shirt. Who are you
trying to impress?"
ÖWell, that did it. We kept our distance from
each other, covering the rest of
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